


Our Redemption

by Yra



Series: Cortland's Adventure, Or How An Apple Tried To Save The World [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Animus Shenanigans, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't Like Don't Read, Dubious Morality, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Graphic description of torture, Homophobic Language, Honeypot Missions Because Al Mualim Would Definitely Be All For It, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Isu Technology (Assassin's Creed), M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Beta Read, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:02:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22331563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yra/pseuds/Yra
Summary: 'The boy looks like me' Altaïr thought.'He looks so much like me. Did father... did father have a child with a woman other than my mother?'Al Mualim was holding the boy by his hair, dragging him through the courtyard and into the keep. The boy was trying to defend himself but his too-thin body was bruised all over and one of his arms was hanging limp at his side. His lips were split and would likely scar. Altaïr brushed his fingers over his own lips, touching the still-tender skin of his own injury.'He's even gonna scar, like me...'
Relationships: Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad/Desmond Miles, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad/Original Male Character(s) (Mentioned), Desmond Miles/Lucy Stillman (past), Desmond Miles/Original Male Character(s) (Mentioned)
Series: Cortland's Adventure, Or How An Apple Tried To Save The World [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798669
Comments: 98
Kudos: 275





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this was supposed to be a one-shot, and I promised myself I'd never write a time travel fic (mostly because it needs fucked up logic and reality to work and I have a really hard fucking time writing this), and while I love Altaïr/Desmond I also never intended to even write a fanfiction of Assassin's Creed yet here I am.  
> I blame esama and what I consider to be a shameful lack of Desmond/men of the past (mostly Altaïr) fics.  
> Hope you're gonna like it :)

Waking up once again with the smell of blood in his nose, Altaïr almost screamed, looking at the corner of the room where Ahmad had fallen and died.

"There's no one there, no one there, no... no one, no one there..."

The boy repeated the words like a litany, needing to hear something that wasn't his own panicked breath nor the ghost sound of blood dripping on the floor. 

"The room is empty, no one is here, I am safe, there is no one in here except myself. I will get up, and walk to that corner and it will be empty."

And the boy stood up, his bare feet not making any sounds on the floor. He walked to the corner of the room, hesitating before touching the stone where the man's head had rested after he lost the strength to hold it up. Nothing. He then crouched down and let his hand travel down the wall to where his back had touched the stone wall, then down to where he had fallen on the floor, still no body there but bloodstains visible even in the dark.

"See, there is no one there, you are fine. All fine, completely fine."

The boy headed back to his bed, somewhat calmed down, too tired to think of doing anything else anyway. 

Waking up with the sun, his throat hurting and his voice hoarse from screaming in his sleep, the boy decided to go see Al Mualim and to ask him to change his room. He doubted that the dreams would stop but perhaps waking up somewhere else would help some. Determined to not spend another night in this room, he packed all of his belonging, his clothes and the few wooden toys his father had given him when he was younger, once pieces of wood he wanted to get rid of, now precious memento of a happier time. He sniffled and wiped his eyes with the sleeves of his short tunic and put his belongings next to the door. 

He left it and took the stairs that would lead him down and into the kitchens. He took the food and milk that a cooking lady offered him and decided to go outside and look at the men train. At this hour, the novices would be running around the keep and the experienced Assassins would be practising their swordsmanship.

Altaïr always loved seeing the men train, loved hearing the sound of metal swords hitting the metal of another weapon or of armour. What he loved the most was when a Master or a Rafiq or maybe even a _Dai_ would practice their skills. Those men were the best of the best, Master Assassins in the field and the Rafiq and Dai when it came to intelligence gathering but one couldn't become a Rafiq, much less a Dai, if they had no combat skills. If anything, they needed to be better than anyone else.

Having the chance to see them spar was always humbling for the boy as well as a source of motivation.

He admired each of the men and the single woman who reached those ranks. Wanted to become like them after his training. At the very least, he wanted to reach the same rank as his father and what better way than to observe the men train? So he rose with the sun (which, before his death, was the time that his father woke up and went to wake him up) and took his food outside and watched the Assassins train, learning as much as he could just by observing them before it was time for him to go in the library for his morning lessons. 

That morning didn't go as usual though. 

The men, none of them of an impressive rank, were sparing as usual when a commotion was heard. That wasn't exactly uncommon, especially among the Novices, Servants and Assistant but Altaïr activated his gift, just in case.

Everything glowed blue, grey or white, as usual. He was about to deactivate it to prevent the incoming headache that would last all day when he noticed a golden lining surrounding a man who glowed blue. 'Not a man' he corrected 'a boy, teenager maybe'.

He left his now empty plate and bowl of milk on the stone on which he was sitting and ran to the group, his gift still activated. He'd deal with the headache, he was used to it. He only deactivated it when Al Mualim noticed him as well the yellow glow of his brown eyes. 

"Ah, Altaïr," the old man said, holding the boy by his arms "there you are, my boy. What did your gift show you when you looked at him?"

"He's an ally, but there's... something weird. Something gold?"

That's when the teen tried to escape, his brown eyes meeting Altaïr's. He managed to get Al Mualim's hands off of him and almost managed to escape the men who were standing behind the Mentor.

'Three Master Assassins' he noticed, surprised. 'Why would the Mentor and three Master Assassins be needed to keep one boy in check?'

The Masters managed to grab the fleeing boy, the angle at which they did making his right shoulder pop out of its socket. A pained sound escaped the boy's lips but despite that, he still struggled against the men holding him in place. His knee shot up into the crotch of the man who made the mistake of standing in front of him. Luckily for the Assassin, the boy's knee hit his thigh instead and he backhanded the boy in retaliation. Al Mualim walked back to the boy, who looked a bit unsteady on his feet now, and grabbed him by the front of his long hair, pulling it away from his face.

'The boy looks like me' Altaïr thought. 'He looks so much like me. Did father... did father have a child with a woman other than my mother?'

Al Mualim was still holding the boy by his hair, now dragging him through the courtyard and into the keep. The boy was trying to defend himself but his too-thin body was bruised all over and one of his arms was hanging limp at his side. His lips were split and would likely scar. Altaïr brushed his fingers over his own lips, touching the still-tender skin of his own injury.

'He's even gonna scar, like me...'

Curious, he followed the group inside, feeling like this kind of involved him and something telling him that he should be there to hear whatever was gonna be said. Seeing as none of the men tried to stop him, none of them telling him to turn back, he figured that he might actually be invited to what would certainly be a really interesting meeting.

The group walked down stairs that Altaïr had never even seen before, the door to it hidden behind a flag with the Assassin's symbol embroidered on it. Guards were standing in front of another door, this one sturdier and locked. The two guards opened it and the group entered the corridor that was revealed.

As soon as he got into the passage, cold and humidity chilled his face and hands, the fabric of his tunic thick enough to block out most of the cold and the salvar that he wore beneath a welcomed layer of warmth, his slippers keeping his feet from the surely chilly stones that the floor was made of. He immediately felt pity for the teenager, who was only wearing a thin salvar and sash and nothing else, no shoes or slippers or even strips of fabric around his feet.

Maybe he'd leave his sash to the boy, if he could. He was glowing blue, after all, he couldn't be an enemy, so if the Masters and Mentor were not going to show him kindness and were going to throw him in what he expected was gonna be a holding cell, for a reason he didn't yet know, then he'd try to helps how he could, because making sure that allies were fine was very important, his father always said so. 

And, if he was being honest with himself, he'd never liked this sash anyway. It always felt very thick around his waist because it was unusual, a large and long rectangle of fabric, and boring in colour. He never liked it at all but his father used to say that, one day, it might come in handy.

"Your salvar is holding up just fine just with strings and until you become a Novice, you will wear a normal tunic so no one will notice if you wear one or not but this sash, even though it's very thick and annoying around your waist, it might end up being useful one day. If you remove it and wear it differently, it can become a hood, to protect your head from the sun in the day or the chill in the night. If you need more hands to be able to hold a lot of things, then you can use it to hold your things. A wide sash like this can be useful, you'll notice that one day."

Altaïr never expected it would actually turn out that the one day he decided to wear his least favourite sash would be the day that someone would find a use for it.

Lost in his mind, the young boy didn't notice that he stopped walking before one of the Master Assassin called his name. Startled, he activated his gift as a reflex, checking his surrounding for enemies. He felt his face grow paler when he saw all the red silhouettes around him. He hurried in the direction of the open door, not keen on being left alone in the middle of all these doors imprisoning enemies. He kept his sight activated until he reached the Master.

"So, you saw them, boy?"

He nodded, still a bit afraid.

"Well, don't worry, they're chained up and the doors are locked, they're not getting out anytime soon. Now get inside."

He nodded again, not quite feeling safe but no longer terrified now that he could see that the silhouettes were not visible without his gift.

The older boy's ankles were chained to the wall, his dislocated shoulder in the oldest Master Assassin's hands. A loud nauseating pop resonated in the small room and all colour left the stranger's face. The Masters all chuckled darkly at that, jokes leaving their mouths as the boy's hands were chained and then the three Masters left the room, leaving only the two boys and the Mentor in it. 

"Tell me again, Altaïr, what colour is this boy?"

"Blue."

"Only blue?"

"Yes."

"No gold?"

"I thought so, when we were outside, but I think it was just the sun, it was shining a lot behind him. I looked again when we were inside and the gold wasn't there anymore."

Altaïr knew that Al Mualim didn't have the gift and he knew that his father never shared much about it to the Mentor. 'As far as he knows, son, we can only see if people are enemies, allies or just innocent passerby. He doesn't know anything else about it. Let's keep it this way, just in case.' His father always said that. Altaïr never saw any reason not to obey his wish for secrecy. It didn't hurt their ally, so no need to say it, so he listened to his father, never told anything else to Al Mualim.

'Perhaps' he thought, 'it will help the stranger get out faster if he's just blue and no weird colour. Protecting allies is important, so I'll protect him. '

"Hm, I see. Make sure not to tell false information again. I will forgive it this time because your gift is one that is mysterious and is yours and yours alone now. If your father were still here, he would surely have told you, but now we know. I trust that this will not happen again."

"Understood, Mentor."

"Good. Now, you, criminal, who are you?"

"'m not a cri..." he paused, spat blood as far away from himself as possible "not a criminal."

"That is not what that merchant was saying about you."

"Not my fault he didn't want his wife to know that her man would rather lay with a boy than with her."

Al Mualim actually pauses for a few seconds to think. 

"Lay with a boy?"

"Ehh, you know exactly what I mean. Some coin for the boy, a dark corner where no one ever wanders. But he panicked, decided that it'd be better for him if the boy wasn't in the picture anymore. Win-win for him, didn't have to pay me, didn't have to risk it being known. He probably left Masyaf now."

Altaïr didn't understand what was being said. The teenager was being paid to do something for the merchant, something criminal, probably. And lay with him, what did that mean? Like, in a bed? What would the merchant be doing in a bed with someone else, sleeping? Maybe he had nightmares and someone there helped him have fewer nightmares. He used to slip into his father's room all the time when he dreamed of bad things. Maybe the merchant wanted that. But he said a place where no one ever went... this was so confusing.

"Well, that has been clarified. I do not have reasons to doubt your story, the marks on your neck are proof enough of... that. However, you resisted your arrest and you have injured my men in the process..."

"I was innocent!"

"... which I cannot let go unpunished, no matter the reason. You are young, visibly homeless. You will work for the residents of the keep. One of the women in the kitchen is having a difficult pregnancy, you will be taking her place until she is well enough to get back to work. You have injured my men, you will take care of them in punishment. Once she is well, you will have the choice to stay in the keep and work elsewhere or to leave. Now on to the last subject I wish to discuss with you. Who is your father and where are you from."

"I don't know. I was born in Damascus. My mother used to tell me that she had family living in Masyaf, but she died before she could tell me anything else.

"How do you not know your father?"

"She had the same job as I do."

"I see. How did you travel from Damascus all the way here?"

A bitter, pained smile tugged at the older boy's lips.

"The merchant let me travel with his caravan. Not for free, I was taking care of the camels."

The Mentor nodded and left the room. 

"Eh! Are you leaving me here?"

The old man stopped and looked at the teenager, Altaïr seemingly forgotten.

"Yes, for some time. A healer will come to take a look at your wounds and you will be fed. You will get some necessary time to reflect on your decision to attack men you were clearly stronger than you."

"Tch, stronger than me. Just because there was so many of them! I could have dealt with them if there'd been less, old man!"

"Mm... Perhaps. Come, Altaïr."

Altaïr sifted a bit.

"C-can I give him something first? It's cold here, and he looks very cold..."

The man nodded. Altaïr lifted his tunic, bit it to keep it out of the way and untied the sash that was tied around his waist. He unfolded it and wrapped it around the teenager's shoulders, careful not to bump against his injured one.

"Here, it won't be as cold now!"

The younger boy smiled.

"Thank you, Altaïr."

The boy felt his smile widen and he jumped back to his feet and ran in front of Al Mualim, ready to go back outside and breathe some fresh air.

'Gold... he has to be important somehow. I know it!'


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo, look at me go!   
> Two chapters in two days, whhhat? Just don't get used to it, I'm fairly unreliable when it comes to writing stuff.   
> Enjoy!

Desmond didn't honestly know what he had expected an eleven years old Altaïr who had lost his father and seen a guy commit suicide in front of his eyes three months ago to be like but it wasn't this.

In the week that he had been out of the holding cells, he'd learned that the boy was surprisingly happy and carefree and loyal to a fault to anyone who even showed him some kindness. Now, the loyalty he knew to expect, however he didn't expect the boy to be so loyal to _him_ in such a _short time_. The rest of it he had been unprepared for. The arrogant man and the old sage that he would become if Desmond didn't mess too much with the timeline had both been too serious and collected for him to expect Kid-Altaïr to be anything but a fairly serious and collected child. 

What he was faced with instead was a boy who laughed as much as could be expected, who loved to play and climb around the fortress, who watched the men train with awe written on his face and a golden glow painted in his eyes when he got particularly exited by a fight, his Eagle Vision acting up without his consent. A boy who sneaked past the guards at night just to come in the kitchen and chat for a few hours with the ladies who had to stay awake at night and keep food ready for the men who were on guard duty and for those who came back home from long missions (surprisingly or not, it seemed to be Desmond's shift from now on. Not that he minded much, he'd done far worse in far worse conditions to survive than bake bread and clean an overheated kitchen at night). 

Altaïr often started conversations with Desmond despite the fact that the older male never talked to him first. He always answered something though, sometimes vague, sometimes lies, sometimes the truth, but the very fact that he never ignored the boy, even when he was very busy, made Altaïr's scared lips stretch into such an adorable toothy smile that Desmond didn't have the hearth to do anything but pay attention to him. 

Once the child waved Desmond and the kitchen maid goodbye and left, the girl sighed softly as soon as Altaïr was far enough that he couldn't hear it.

"Poor boy..." was all she said before tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

She gestured for Desmond to come help her lift a huge an iron cast cauldron that she had just finished cleaning and oiling. The moved it to a chimney and secured it over the fire that was already roaring there. 

She was new in the keep, only been there for five months, she'd told him on his first day (night). 

She liked it there, she'd said, the men respected her wishes to not be touched and the other maids were all kind to her, despite the fact that she was an unmarried mother. She'd said that last part defiantly, almost daring him to say anything about it but all he answered was that his mother had raised him all alone, and that any man anywhere could be his father, so he didn't judge. She didn't judge either when she asked him what he used to do before starting to work in the fortress and he'd answered that he was keeping up the family tradition. Instead, she'd said that her name was Amira and that she looked forward to be working with a boy who had a head and clearly knew how to use it to think. They had developed an easy companionship,silence comfortable between them and conversations stress free. 

"You know, Desmond, Altaïr used to only rarely come in the kitchen at night. Only when his father was away on a trip. Now, well, he still acts the same but I think he doesn't get much sleep at all. Not during the night, not during the day. I'm afraid that the boy might collapse and that maybe he won't recover after that. It's good that you're here though. You might be distant family, close family, but family, even distant, it can help with things like that."

Desmond tried to interrupt her and correct her assumptions but she cut her off, her slender hand up in front of his face as if it was enough to block anything he could say.

"No one believes that you aren't his family but whether you are or not, it doesn't really mater. _He_ thinks that you are, so be careful to not hurt him. It might actually break him if you do, the sweet thing."

The rest of the night happened without any problems, men coming in the kitchen to grab plates of food and to return them once empty, Amira leaving from times to times to take care of her son, to feed him and clean him when he soiled himself

When the girl was out of the kitchen, the men who came in had less reservations about lingering to observe Desmond. A few of them gave him the stink eye, others, clearly used to consider everything with a more or less healthy dose of paranoia, looked at him warily. Others, mostly those who were his age and of low rank, simply ignored him most of the time, only glancing twice at him because of how unusual it was to see a boy or man working in the kitchen but dismissing it as unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Finally, some asked about his lineage, asked if he was related to the Ibn-La'Ahad in any way. He always answered with "For all I know, any man in Masyaf could be my father".

They usually left him alone after that. 

Desmond worked constantly, only taking seconds long breaks to drink some tea (he wasn't sure that his body wouldn't violently rebel against water unless it was boiled. He didn't like tea but it raised less questions to just drink tea than to boil water just to let it cool down and to drink it as it was), eat some fresh cheese with khubz and whatever was left in the almost empty cauldron of stew of the night and to go relieve himself.

He was mixing some khubz dough when a young, familiar voice brought him back to reality.

"...smond, Desmond? Do you wanna come with me to watch the men train?" 

He paused from mixing his seventh huge (and last) batch for the morning meal. He noticed that the oldest batch, which had had enough time to raise, was already baked or in the process of being baked by Farida, a constantly exhausted young mother of five who had decided to leave her husband's house in a nearby village to come live in the fortress with her children. Since four of them were boys, all of them strong for their age and all of them younger than seven years old, Al Mualim had gladly let her stay there. Four futures Assassins, a girl who would probably marry an Assassin one day (and give birth to boys and girls (and those girls would follow in the footsteps of their mother and give birth to boys and girls...)), that wasn't something he could easily refuse (not to mention that young women abused by their husbands made for grateful, loyal maids or wives to anyone who showed them any kindness). 

"Desmond, come oooon, your work day is over, grab food and come watch the sparing with me! The Masters are still there, yesterday they said they were gonna spar this morning, it will be great, please?"

"Yes, yes, just give me a moment..." 

He washed his hands with some water and wiped them on his salvar, not caring too much about leaving some water marks on it. It needed to washed anyway, the water would barely be noticeable anyway. He took a freshly baked khubz, an hard boiled egg, a little bowl in which he poured a bit of oil, grabbed some cheese, a few dried dates (not the most inspiring breakfast/last meal of the day but it was food, and rich food at that, meaning lots of calories which he desperately needed and he had first dibs over anyone waiting to get food) and a cup of frankly-barely-better-than-mud tea and followed Altaïr outside, grateful for the fresh air and the sun on is skin. 

The sound of swords clashing and of grunts of efforts immediately drew his eyes to the ring. He never told Altaïr, of course, but he felt a longing to get in there and participate in the sparing. A few things stopped him from actually doing so, the first being his painfully obvious lack of meat on his bones (though in the two weeks that he had spent in the his holding cell and the one he'd spent in the kitchen he'd already put on some muscle and the tiniest amount of fat around his face) and the second being the fact that it could either open the doors of the Brotherhood to him or close them permanently. He already had a story ready for the questions he'd no doubt get asked once he would be forced to fight to defend himself but it wasn't that moment yet. 

"My favorite rock is free! Hurry up before anyone else takes it!" 

The young boy started running towards it, some milk splashing out of his cup and food threatening to fall down of his plate. Desmond shook his head with a small smile and walked casually to sit next to his will-probably-never-be ancestor and started eating his food. The boy did the same thing, content for now to simply watch the dance of swords clashing together. 

"I'll be starting my training next week."

"Hm?"

"Yes! I'll be a Novice, and then I'll go up and up and up and boom, I'll be a Master just like my father! He'll be proud of me, he won't be able to say it but he will be."

Desmond lightly nudged Altaïr's shoulder, knowing that even just simple, gentle touches like that were enough to help the boy feel a bit better.

That was another thing that surprised him, how much the child needed physical affection.

When Amira left the kitchen to take care of her baby, if he was still there, Altaïr often asked a hug from the taller male. Just like the toothy grin, he couldn't refuse the sad puppy face. 

"Say, Desmond..."

"What is it?"

"You know, how there were three Masters to catch you..."

"Three Masters and a bunch of other people, yeah, what about them?"

"Really? But how! They are trained like, a whole lot!"

"Hm, really? They weren't really a challenge at all."

In retrospect, Desmond shouldn't have said that out loud where a bunch of experienced Assassins were within earshot. 

What alerted him that someone was going to attack him was the almost silent high pitched sound of metal against metal right behind him. 

Instinct kicked in, his Eagle Vision activating before he even had the time to roll out of the way of the hidden blade going after his neck. From the corner of his Vision, he saw the midnight blue shade of Altaïr's aura jumping away from the rock, crouched low and his eyes glowing a violent gold, sign that he had activated the gift too. In front of him, three men, all of them a shade of blue swirled with red. 

"What are you guys doing?!?" Altaïr asked.

"Stay out of this" the shorter man said. "We have business with this piece of shit. He hurt Tamir's arm so bad he might never be able to hold a blade again. We're not letting him get away with it."

Desmond got up slowly, wiping the dust away from his tunic. 'Well, this is gonna end in a fight no matter what, might as well make it fun' he thought. None of them seemed strong enough to be able to take him on, not even as a team of three, not even if they had weapons and he did not, not even considering his shameful lack of muscle mass and short pre-18-years-old-growth-spurt height. So he straightened his back, cracked his neck then rolled his shoulders (his right one still a bit stiff but usable) then cracked his knuckles, pretty anxious for a fight.

"So, want a repeat performance? Little warning, I won't be going any easier on you three than I did on the men who attacked me the other day." he said with a dangerous smirk on his face.

The tallest man snarled at the obvious goading but stayed put, waiting for the others to attack first. They, no doubt, had discussed some sort of strategy before coming after him. He was probably the brute strength of the group, would probably try to land hits while the other two, who seemed to favor fast weapons, would distract him. Their stances were slightly sloppy but otherwise they seemed fairly competent, clearly used to fighting together, they were being smart about this. Not smart enough but still.

They might actually become descent Assassins some day, then.

Desmond flared his Eagle Vision to spread his awareness around him (not unlike what Bayek of Siwa, an ancestor both his parents shared, apparently, could do using his connection to his actual bird) to make sure no one would try to attack him from behind. 

That's when the fight began.

Desmond immediately spotted the dried up and small puddle of bloody phlegm that he'd spat out on his first ten minutes in the cell.

'The same cell, really? Couldn't have put me somewhere else, a cell with slightly different shapes of dried up body fluids? Could be nice, some variety.'

"Do you like this cell so much that you needed to be sent back in it, boy?"

Desmond stared at the corner at Al Mualim's right, not answering the man. Not that he expected an answer to that question, or if he did then the old man had clearly lost his mind, completely. 

"You have training, that much is clear. You even knew to look out for the wrist blade. Who is the Assassin who trained you?"

He raised his chained hands and scratched his chin, his fingers encountering a thick, unwelcome hair on his chin.

'Huuuurgh, patchy beard and uneven stubble, didn't miss those. How long did it take before I had a descent looking face even when I forgot to shave every morning, three years? And even then, I had to shave every three or four days if I didn't want to have a damned porn stash and hairy neck and patchy everything else. Actually, my beard was still changing when the Flare happened, it only settled after that... damn it, so ten years?'

"You will remain here an additional week for each day that you refuse to answer my questions. If you answer me, I can help you reach your potential, you have a lot of it, but first you must stop looking at me like I am you enemy. I am not."

Desmond finally looked at Al Mualim with a sneer.

"Oh, really? Sorry, I guess being thrown in a cell twice for defending myself doesn't give me this impression. And what's it matter anyway who trained me? A man in white clothes with a red sash and a triangle with a half circle underneath. He never showed his face, never told us his name."

"I see. Who is 'us'?"

The younger man (or boy? Was he an adult or teenager, this was so confusing) twisted his face in a fake but convincing expression of panic.

"No one."

"Well, I hope you will be more compliant tomorrow then."

Al Mualim turned around and Desmond asked if he was really gonna keep him in there for five weeks and, since he got no answer, started shouting obscenities at the old man in a mix of Arabic and English, some Italian thrown in for good measure. As soon as the door closed, he activated the Eagle Vision to track the man, maintaining his act for the whole time that he lingered close to the door, some colorful and original insults in Ratohnhaké:ton's tongue also being screamed at the now retreating form when he ran out of ideas in the other three languages, the words feeling a lot less natural rolling out of his mouth, both because he'd spent less time living through Ratohnhaké:ton's life than he did living through Altaïr's and Ezio's and also because, once he took on the name Connor, the man had stopped speaking his native language.

Not that Al Mualim would know.

Once he was sure that the Mentor couldn't hear him anymore he finally stopped screaming his throat raw.

Knowing he'd be alone for a long, long time, Desmond let himself think of his life before he went back to the Middle Ages.

'I miss them all so, so much... I wonder how they're all doing. I know I won't see or hear about Dora and Michel ever again, and Mark will probably never be able to leave Japan, but everyone else... I will see them again someday. Kyle, dad, Julie, Brian, Shaun, Rebecca... I will see you all again.

We promised ourselves we would, so you assholes better not die from a dumb illness or something...'


	3. A Future Long Past, Recording #5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really short, I know, I know, but now we get some background! Next chapter, back to Desmond and Altaïr's present!  
> Hope you guys like this idea!

_Vocal recording #5_

_Hey so, huh, this one is actually... it's different, it's important._

_The Apples... they are so much stronger than we ever guessed. They... evolve, I guess? On their own. They're almost like living machines, they were created with a goal and now they try to accomplish that goal, all by themselves. Self-evolving AIs, really._

_This Apple, the one from Italy, it was created by Isu who wanted knowledge. It has the same ability to control humans as the other Apples but this one is... well, it's different. The other Apples don't really show you knowledge, and this one can't really control people as well as Altaïr's so it... (sound of a fall, muffled voice saying shit, a few seconds of silence) so yes, it can do the same things as the other Apples, just weaker._

_What makes it interesting is that it teaches stuff, so much that it could kill someone. Not just turn someone insane like Leonardo thought, no. There's so much knowledge stored in this that it could fry someone's brain. It doesn't know everything, of course, but it feels like it does._

_We're lucky that this is the Apple in our possession. It'll never actually try to control or corrupt us unless it's necessary like._

_Like. Like with Lucy. But the Apple was not entirely responsible, Juno was to blame too._

_I_ _t tries to teach us instead. The Apple was made for Isu though so it didn't know how much it could teach without just... completely ruining its users brain. It tried teaching people who were 100% human, none of them survived. Leonardo, may the man be blessed, had some Isu genes, just enough that the Apple could feed him information without damaging him, and it learned about humans from him. Even learned how to give knowledge without a physical contact._

_Anyway, the Apple has been teaching me stuff. Isu history, Atlantis. Fuck, I miss Atlantis. I've never seen it not really, but the Apple did and it showed me images. I hope I could see that city..._

_Ah, sorry, I'm rambling... it's teaching me stuff 24/7 since a few days, I can't make it shut up, and it's desperate. There's so much to learn, so fucking much._

_So. I don't know how to really explain how massive that is but all Apples have a shared database, that's how they can locate one another. Our Apple can also interact with other Pieces of Eden, to gather more knowledge from them. The only one it can't interact with is the one in this very Temple._

_It's still analyzing the Orb, it wants to know how exactly it works, problem is, it's protected with coding that no one could breach in a thousand years. I know you think you could manage it Rebecca but trust me, you'd go crazy before even understanding the first line of coded. The Apple, ours, let's call it Cortland, well, it thinks it can do it in about 79 years, give or take one, all alone, or it can hack into the other Apples. I wanna call the the them the_ _Spartan. So Cortland think it can hack into the Spartans in about two weeks, and then all of them could break the Orb's coding in about 9 years and complete the analysis in a few months after that._

_Heh, Cortland, that kind of sounds like Cortana. Cortana and the Spartans. I like that._

_Sorry, rambling again._

_So anyway, Cortland is convinced that understanding the Orb is extremely important so it's gonna start hacking into the Spartans soon._

_For now, it seems sad. It was built right before the Great Cataclysm, it's seen so much destruction, it doesn't want a repeat performance._

_Know what, the Apples are AIs with emotions, can't keep calling them it. Cortland is a girl now. (silence, some laughter)_

_She likes the idea. The Isu scientists who made her were all female._

_So, she doesn't want a repeat performance, she wants the world to survive. She thought Leonardo might manage to help but he didn't so I'm the last hope. She wishes it was different but it's not. The Orb is the only way, she knows as much, but the Orb, it'll kill me. She doesn't know why, doesn't know how, but she knows it will._

_Cortland is sorry for that, by the way._

_Oh, fun fact: she can't locate the batteries. Sorry._

_Also, even more interestingly: the Isu had no, absolutely no, idea that the Apples would develop the way that they did. None of their calculations predicted this, and the clever bastard that they are hid this from them. The Apple a pretty cool, you know._

_So anyway. I guess, huh, well, I have a request for you guys. I wrote a letter, for Lucy. Think you could bury it close to her grave one day? Not that I'll ever know about this, of course, but. I just... I just want to know you will, you know? (fumbling, loud sigh)_

_Dad, please... please don't read the letter. Its just. You don't wanna read it. Trust me on this, at least, alright?_

_Rebecca, Shaun, you fuckers dare open it I will find a way to haunt the two of you._

_Also, I don't hate any of you. You stuck me in this machine that made me loose my mind, forced me back into this life that I never wanted but I get it. I'd have done the same thing. My fate was decided thousand of years ago, it's not really your fault._

_Keep Cortland close to someone with a high Isu lineage. She'll share her knowledge willingly._

_Goodbye, guys. Take care alright?_

_(End of recording)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot, for the life of me, remember if Desmond is left or right handed and I don't really care all that much, so he's ambidextrous but favors his left hand.

'Breakfast is boring without Desmond' the boy thought, eating his food in the mess hall, next to the kitchen, bored out of his mind and too tired for the endless chatter around him. He drank his milk and stared at the bottom of the cup. 

The two months that Desmond had to spend in solitary seemed like _ages_ to Altaïr. Sure, the teenager was gonna be free in two days, and with all the training Altaïr had to do and everything, he didn't really have time to get bored but two days... it was kinda long. He missed the teenager so much, and he was so amazing! The way that he fought the Soldiers, like boom and bah and rolling around everywhere and just so.. so... so _bad ass_. And Altaïr had so many questions for him. Mostly about his gift. His father always told him that their gift was something that only their family had. Only them. 

'I don't think it'll be very important for you to know, since there's just the two of us left from our family, but we never know . Maybe someone had a child, hundreds of years ago, and maybe one of the descendant lives now and is going to be your enemy, so I will still tell you, now that you have used the gift for the first time. Back when my cousin was still alive, she had the gift too. When both used it, our eyes glowed gold. Beware of anyone using the gift, they might be a traitor, understood?'

And Desmond's eyes had been sooooooooo gold!

And he was still surrounded by the weird gold aura around his pale blue aura. And he'd seen the gold aura expend around Desmond into a perfect circle all around him and it had made _everyone_ glow a bit silver. Altaïr even _felt_ where people were and he wasn't the one who did... whatever it was that Desmond did. 

'Father always said he'd teach me one day, that there's a lot more than just seeing colors around people. He said he was the only one who knew, but now he's dead. But Desmond, I think he knows...'

Altaïr had been frustrated when his dad had refused to teach him anything more than what the colors meant. 'Not before you're older' he kept saying. 'Naja relied on the gift too much and I _know_ that this is what got her killed. I won't teach it to you before you become a Novice, at the very least' but his father died and he gave up on ever, ever knowing about the gift. 

But now Desmond was here.

And he could use the gift. 

So that was good. 

"Novices, time to go!" instructor Amalia said, her orange air looking almost too bright in the dim mess hall. 

Altaïr liked Amalia, she was nice, and her lessons were fun. She was always smiling and cheering everyone, Labib's complete opposite.

"Hope you boys didn't eat too much, three laps each around the city before noon, those who can't complete them will have extra drills to do the next free day!"

Stunned silenced 

Altaïr hated Amalia, she was a monster, something was wrong, **_incredibly wrong,_** with her, she wasn't Labib's opposite, she was _worse_...

His legs were burning. He was the first to complete his laps and the instructor congratulated him and then made him run an extra lap because 'if you're good then you need to be better. Always. Never settle down for the minimum and what is expected of other people, settle for the absolute best you can do. Now catch up with Rauf, the boy clearly doesn't take any of this seriously. You should be able to catch up to him soon, he just completed his second lap. Hurry!'.

"Liar" the boy muttered later in the dark of the barracks. Rauf was almost done with his last lap by the time Altaïr caught up to him. Amalia had looked very proud of him, though...

Then, when the Sun was burning bright and strong, plates of food on their laps, they had 'European lessons' inside, learning the weirdly shaped letters the Crusaders used. They learned about their religion and the Christ. (The boys all knew how to read and write Arabic already, knew their numbers and some science and herbs that could heal. They had to know these things before becoming Novices.) So they learned some French and Italian and they were told that they would learn other languages later, as well what was known of the politics of the Europeans. 

And then, when the Sun was about to start painting the sky with the first hints of orange and pink and red, they spared for a while. Instructor Labib walked around, not teaching anything new and only concentrating on correcting the Novices' form. Labib nodded approvingly when Altaïr helped Abbas while sparing with him, showing him the correct way to do this and that. As night fell, it was harder and harder to avoid blows coming their way but their instructor told them to keep on practicing for a while.

"Do you boys really think enemies will let you go because it's dark outside? No, so practice!"

The man didn't torture them for long though, letting them go about half an hour after dark. The exhausted sweaty boys put their wooden weapons on the racks and went back inside. Abbas thanked Altaïr for his help and he answered with a toothy smile.

The boys then left for the kitchen, grabbed some food, ate in the mess hall, then went to wash up the sweat of the day and change their clothes and they all went back to their barrack room. Most lied down immediately and fell asleep in seconds, others talked, others practiced their letters.

Altaïr read books that his father owned, poems and epics he knew already but still loved.

Eventually, Master Assassin Souffiane went to the room and ordered the lights to be put out. Everyone headed to their bed and the candles were blown out, leaving the room dark, almost pitch black.

Despite the exhaustion of the day, despite his aching legs and tired arms, Altaïr couldn't sleep. He spent some time looking at the dark ceiling.

Still staring at nothing in the dark.

Still staring.

Still.

...

Altaïr shifted in his bed, stretched his arms and felt and heard his shoulder pop. A sigh of relief escaped his lips. It had been sensitive all day, that certainly helped. He then lied comfortably, ready to sleep.

Or not.

It was too dark, he was in a shared room now, with the other Novices and lights out was a serious order so he couldn't light a candle.

If he couldn't light a candle, he couldn't know that there wasn't someone bleeding to his death in the corner of the room.

He couldn't know that the darkness wasn't caused by his closed eyes and that Ahmad wasn't holding him against his chest as he heard the gurgles of his father chocking on his own blood.

His breathing got uneven, he felt warm thick blood on his fingers as he screamed for someone to come save Ahmad because even if his father's death was his fault he _didn't want Ahmad to die_...

No.

No.

Nothing was happening, nothing, everything was...

He couldn't breathe, his throat tasted like metal as he screamed his voice hoarse, hoping that someone would come save Ahmad, hoping that the men wouldn't kill his father if they could just hear how much he needed him alive not _dead_...

No.

No.

He was fine. He was in the barracks, not in his room, not on the ramparts. 

'Breathe, breathe, _breathe dammit!'_

No blood on his hands. They were dry, they were touching his face, and there was no wet, sticky feeling left in their wake.

No one was dying. There was no labored breathing, no one was cheering as his father's body fell to the ground.

He wasn't screaming, his throat wasn't actually hurting, he hadn't made a sound.

He was fine. He could hear the other boys breathing and snoring in their sleep.

He lived in the shared rooms now, he was a Novice. Not a little boy anymore. He was a Novice, and Novices didn't get scared of memories. He was a Novice, and he was _strong_ now, instructor Amalia had said so when she was teaching the other boys to jump over obstacles and he was already at the top of the ramparts. Instructor Labib had said he was good with blades, that he was the only one who didn't risk gouging his own eye out because he was too clumsy. The scholars had said he was smart, maybe too smart, but better too much than not enough. 

So he had no reason to fear memories. No reason to be afraid of the dark. No reason at all.

'I can't become a Master Assassin if I panic because of deaths I couldn't prevent. I _can't_ be _weak_. I need to sleep.' 

But clearly, he was unable to sleep so carefully, soundlessly, he got dressed in his clothes, his _Novice_ clothes, and left the barracks. 

'If you get caught leaving the barracks section of the castle at night, you will run around Masyaf all daylight long or until you pass out, whichever happens first' Master Souffiane had said.

Altaïr, being the mischievous boy he was, took the warning as a challenge, extremely cautious when leaving and getting back every night, always activating his gift to check for guards, already knowing the patterns that guards followed and where the sentinels were posted. So he made sure to be careful when getting out, climbing the walls to avoid the patrols and sentinels when he had no other options and, as every night, sneaked his way to the kitchens. Amira and Farida were both working, as usual. They always worked at night. Farida had finally been assigned to the days when Desmond arrived but she had to work at nights again. 

'The shortest best week of my life' she'd said to Amira while laughing before going on a rant about boys and how they couldn't be trusted. They were both weird women but he liked them a lot. Amira was kind, and Farida always gave him a hug. They talked with him and showed him comfy places where he could hide and be comfy. Farida gave him his usual cup of warm milk and honey, 'it's a secret, you don't tell anyone, alright? You're so thin, let's get some skin on your bones!' and ate a handful of dried dates (dried dates were sooooo good!), speaking a bit with the two women. Feeling safe in the orange-ish glow of the kitchen, soothed by the familiar and much loved taste of milk, honey and dates, sitting on blankets and pillows that the two kept there just for him to have a comfy place to sit on, all warm in his little cocoon, the boy fell asleep to the gentle lull of women's voices and gentle sound of the fires burning under the cauldrons.

"Altaïr, wake up boy!"

"Mmnnnooooooo..."

"Come on, the Sun is about to rise, you need to go back to the barracks."

"Farid-huh? The Sun?"

"Yes, hurry!"

As soon as he actually understood what she said the boy got up, sneaked his head in the hallway to make sure that it was empty and bolted out of the kitchen, a loud thank you leaving his lips. Farida and Amira smiled and got back to their work.

Altaïr was about to turn a corner, running full sprint in a section of the keep that no one ever patrolled when he bumped head first into a wall of brick that DEFINITELY wasn't there before and fell on his but. He rubbed at his head and looked at the wall, thoroughly confused. 

Two strong legs, a red sash, a long dark brown beard and a face peeking out from under a _white_ hood... oh no.

Master Souffiane was rubbing his belly where Altaïr had headbutted him, a wince on his face usually blank face. He looked at the boy who was still sitting on the ground with a raised eyebrow, not saying anything.

Altaïr took a deep breath

"I... huh.. technically you caught me when I was going back not when I was sneaking out of the shared rooms so I wasn't doing anything I was told I couldn't do so you can't punish me for it?"

An amused smile answered him.

"Couldn't sleep, I'm guessing? Figures, after what happened with Umar and Ahmad... Well, don't worry, Novice. Words and formulations are important, don't forget it. And don't share this with everyone just yet, will you? Let them figure it out for themselves."

And Souffiane went on his way, grumbling about people running where they shouldn't.

A malicious little smile stretched the boy's lips.

'Words are important, huh? Interesting...'

The next day, their training started with the theoretical lessons, and then they had their weapon training.

Labib was teaching them how to throw knifes at still targets. Malik, curse him, was slightly better than anyone else.

'Not for long, I know I can practice at night now...'

So he let Malik gloat over his temporary superiority, knowing full well that he'd be surpassing him soon enough. Labib was screaming at a boy one head taller that everyone else who was 'stupid enough to confuse me for your target? Are you missing a few marbles, boy?' when Altaïr saw a silhouette dressed in black and another one right next to him, dressed with the standard clothes that everyone bellow the rank of Master wore. The Mentor and a short, slender person, presumably a boy, but it was hard to see from this distance, especially since the smaller person had pulled their hood over their head. 

Altaïr activated his gift, curious. 

Pale blue surrounded with gold.

Why was Desmond wearing an Assassin's uniform?

Deciding that he'd know soon enough, the boy started throwing his knifes at his target again, focusing on the right technique rather than actually hitting the target. 'Plenty of time to practice my accuracy at night, not much time to learn the right technique.'

He knew immediately when the Mentor was noticed by Labib because he immediately ordered the boys to stop practicing and to gather the knifes that had gotten everywhere.

"Mentor" the man said.

"Labib, I know you are busy with the new Novices, but I request that you test this boy's abilities."

Their instructor agreed, of course, and told everyone to exit the ring. 

"Alright, Novices, observe and stay silent. Dezmand, mend, Dizmind? Whatever. What kind of weapon do you wish to use, real, wood?"

"A steel blade will do just fine. Short."

Labib said nothing, went to a weapon rack and threw a blade standard short blade to Desmond. He caught it by the handle with his left hand and immediately switched it to his right, a finger checking to see if the blade was sharpened or not (it wasn't) and in the same movement took a low stance, feet fairly wide apart, almost too much, his body taking on a pose that reminded him of a cat about to attack despite the fact that, to someone with less training, he barely even looked cautious. His body was sideways to his, the side of the blade that would be sharp in the field facing away from his forearm, his left hand in a position that reminded him of how some used their hidden blade to strike down unaware opponents.

'He can't possibly know how to use our blade, can he? No, no, probably just a fluke, or whoever showed him how to fight used one...'

His own sword in hand, the instructor saluted and kept a relaxed pose, his long, heavy sword pointed at the ground. An invitation for the teenager to attack him. But he didn't. He walked around the ring, testing the stability of rocks under his feet in a way that, once again, wouldn't be noticed by inexperienced men. In all honesty, the boy almost looked scared. After almost a minute of nothing happening, Labib attacked first. He had Novices to teach, he couldn't let that Daz-whatever-was-his-name hinder him.

So he attacked, and the boy dodged. 

'Sloppy' the man thought' but voluntarily so.'

He attacked again, multiple strikes in a row, and the boy dodge those he 'could' and deflected the others with the blade.

'Doesn't try to block with a weapon not made for defense, good. But he could have counterattacked multiple times and he didn't even try but he saw those opportunities, he was in the perfect position to actually do it, his blade at just the right angle to deal a killing blow twice. He's voluntarily trying to look less skilled than he is. That won't do.'

Labib stopped playing after that, being downright ruthless with the boy but still not attacking with everything he had, increasing the intensity to test how far he would go to pretend that he wasn't as good as he was. Eventually, Des-something "tripped" over a rock and stayed down. 

'Oh no, he will not make a mockery of his own skills.' 

So when the boy stood up again, swiped right next to his face, into the hood that the boy was wearing. The sound of fabric ripping took everyone by surprise, he could hear a couple gasps behind him but he payed them no mind. He put the tip of his blade against his opponent's throat. 

"You gave me a dull weapon but you're using a sharpened one??"

The boy's outraged voice squeaked in the middle. Labib smiled evilly. 

"Yes. Now show me what you can actually do"

A snarl broke away from the boy and he leaped back, multiple steps away, his stance lowering and his blade raised close to his face, his left arm looking useless but clearly ready to grab any part of his opponent if he deemed it necessary. 

Finally. 

After that, the spar became something worth talking about, the boy a savage little thing who didn't hesitate to punch his way into getting an opening, striking at anything that wasn't armored with his fist and blade both, rolling and leaping away as often as he could, deflecting and counterattacking everything else. Labib knew, without a doubt, that he'd be covered in bruises come the next day and that he'd be seriously injured if the boy had a sharpened blade. The boy fought dirty, grabbed rocks and threw them at his face when he could, kicked him while he dodged. 

'He's used to fight men much stronger and better than he is.'

Surprisingly, except for a small nick on the boy's neck caused by him threatening the teenager into actually fighting, he didn't draw blood again. Finally getting bored, the man decided to use a series of blows that always made him win against his marks back when he worked as an actual Assassin, before the lung injury that he somehow survived but never fully recovered from. But the boy switched his blade from his right to his left hand and crouched low under the first blow, grabbed the man's right hand, his sword hand, and placed the dagger under the taller male's throat.

"You're dead" he said. 

In a real fight, Labib would have been dead a while ago, both of them knew it by now, but neither of them said anything about that.

An over the top exited Altaïr jumped on Dez-who-cares's back and started shouting how incredible this fight had been and 'I can't wait to be this good' and 'I'm so glad you're out, I missed you!' while everyone else looked a bit jealous. Of the older boy's skill or because Altaïr knew him, who knew. The man didn't care.

The boy was good, he fought dirty, fought to win no matter what. He was fucking fast and smart and sure, he hid it well but Labib was no spring chick, he _knew_.

Against a real enemy, the fight would have lasted maybe ten seconds. A hidden blade would have sunk itself into a heart, throat, eye, lung, whichever fatal place was the easiest to reach. No mater how tiny the opening, the boy would have found and used it.

So when Al Mualim looked at him, his eyes asking if he'd let the boy win, he shook his head, silently saying words the Mentor understood despite how far he was. The man called Desmond back to his side (Desmond, what a weird name, clearly European), Altaïr still asking hundred of questions in a flurry of word vomit that was somehow understood by the older boy. 

"I'll train with you when I have the time, I promise. See you later."

He gave the boy a squeeze on his shoulder and left. Labib could swear that he'd never seen a happier Altaïr. 

(Not that he'd have noticed if the boy had been happy. Half of the boys wouldn't make it past the one year mark in the field. Of those who would come back, at least one would be an empty husk, better dead than alive. He cared about none of the dead, none of the ones who breathed air and no emotion ever again. 

He cared about the boys whose childhood died while they spilled blood. Cared about the boys who came back as men, strong enough to survive this life. Perhaps it was wrong, perhaps it was the only way to not die of grief over the death of tens of his students, the man didn't know.)

The Novices were all conversing excitedly between themselves, not hearing his first few calls.

"IF YOU ALL DON'T SHUT YOUR MOUTHS I AM SENDING YOU TO AMALIA TWO HOURS EARLIER EVERY DAY FOR THE NEXT TEN DAYS!"

The betrayed silence that followed drew a smirk on his face. They'd listen now.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a bit of a hard time with this chapter. My personal life is a mess and well, I barely found time to write, i have a hard time focusing. I feel like this chapter isn't as good as the others, I know it isn't, but the next ones will be better, promise. I'll go back to fix mistakes, I know that my verb tenses are probably a bit of a mess, sorry in advance.

Altaïr and Ezio had had a fondness of high places that Desmond never understood. High places were not safe, not in any way. Then he lived through Ratohnhaké:ton's memories and something he'd told a young kid during the war resonated strongly to him.

'Instead of ignoring your fear and climbing _despite_ the fact that you are afraid, practice safely, barely a feet up the ground. Practice until you _know_ you can do it, until you _know_ that you will not fall. Then go higher, and higher, and look at the ground. Don't ignore it. Look at the ground and remember, you will not fall because you are stronger than what pulls you to the ground. Your body will not fail you.'

'But I'm not afraid of falling!' the kid had said.

'No? Then what are you afraid of?' and wasn't that a good question? 

And really, that might have been a naïve way to see the fear of heights but it helped Desmond, 200 something years in the future. Then, a few hours in the animus later, Desmond felt the moment of panic that his ancestor had felt when he almost fell from a meter or so in the snow, nothing that would have killed him, but the terror ad been real. He'd been afraid for days after that, more cautious than ever when his feet weren't touching the ground. So to learn that Ratohnhaké:ton had been afraid of heights too but had still managed to do everything Desmond himself struggled with... well, it put some things in perspective.

So Desmond trusted his body, trusted that he wouldn't, _couldn't_ fall.

And suddenly, heights became soothing, in a way.

Not quite safe but familiar.

In the way that a wild, tamed animal feels familiar. Not an actual threat as long as you stay in control. Control over your body, over your mind, and he had both.

So, when he needed to be alone, to think, he packed some food and scaled to the roof of the fortress. No one ever bothered him there. He wasn't the only one to go there but there seemed to be an agreement that, if someone was on the highest part of the roof, no one ever bothered them. No one joined them, and so there he was, on the roof, under the harsh, unforgiving mid-day Sun, his grey hood on, food and a lukewarm herbal infusion in a bag at his hip, thinking back on his two months in prison.

It had been surprisingly easy to convince Al Mualim that Naja, Umar's cousin, had given birth to him about fifteen years ago.

Perhaps _too_ easy. 

"Mm, I see. So she betrayed us but still thought you too fight, told you to come to Masyaf if she were to die. Yes, that's the kind of woman she was."

And that's all the old man had said on the matter.

In the two months that Desmond spent in solitary, Al Mualim visited every day, feeding him pro-Assassin propaganda, teaching him of the tenets that his 'mother' had neglected to tell him about. The old man was the only person who he spoke to in those two months. If he'd been a normal fifteen years old orphaned prostitute, Al Mualim would have, without a single doubt, gained a loyal teenager in his ranks. 

Desmond wasn't just any fifteen years old though (more like a 37 years old man going through puberty _again_ (hormones were a fucking bitch, the pimples on his back were absolutely disgusting and the complete lack of hair _anywhere_ on his body made him feel ridiculously naked, not to mention the _other_ stuff that came with puberty...)). He was not just any prostitute. And he was not an orphan, as far as he knew his dad was still alive, somewhere in France.

Not that he'd let the old man know about it. 

So instead, he pretended to drink up every word the man said. Pretended to be sorry for hurting the men who were only doing their job, pretended that he felt regret for causing harm to the men who were now his brothers (because it was apparently that easy to become an Assassin in the Levantine Brotherhood).

It was almost _too_ easy. 

Well, for the moment he was gonna go with the flow. He was used to that, at least. Letting other people tell him what to do, and letting them _think_ that he was actually doing what they told him to do. 

So when Al Mualim finally let him out of his cell and lead him to the baths, telling him to was up and dress in his new clothes, he obeyed. He accepted the clean, white tunic, the grey hood and red sash, the grey pants and the supple, dark brown leather boots. He got dressed, pulled the hood over his head, letting out a soft breath at the familiar feeling of weight on his head and shadows on his face. 

The old man then brought him outside, under the harsh sun, and told him to spar against a man who saw through Desmond's bullshit and actually threatened him into putting some effort in this spar. So instead of pretending, he fought. He fought dirty, he fought like an asshole to cover up the fact that he still wasn't giving this his all. He fought with his right hand instead of his left and fought how he'd usually have fought if he'd had a hidden blade on his arms (fuck, Altaïr hadn't designed Ezio's blades yet, he'd have to make do with a missing finger and a single hidden blade)), creating opening that he exploited with punches instead of stabs. 

Then, Al Mualim had brought him to the top of a tower, the old man using the stairs and the 'teenager' told to climb the wall, had asked one of the guards there to demonstrate a Leap of Fate and had gestured for Desmond to perform one too. He nodded at the order, lingering at the edge of the tower before jumping down, the thrill of the fall making him smile, the shock of the landing a dull thud, nowhere near painful, in his entire body. 

Then, once he'd climbed the tower, _again_ , Al Mualim was holding a crossbow and throwing knifes. 

"Ever used any of these, boy?"

"Yes, both."

And so his entire day was spent training and being tested.

He knew he'd shown too much when a Master Assassin spoke to the old man about wanting to take him with him on his missions saying he "refuse to let his potential go to waste because of his age. The boy is skilled, and we've lost Umar AND Ahmad. We need skilled men as soon as possible and he can be one of them. You know I'm right, Mentor. I know he's Naja's son, I know he's Flower potential, he's certainly pretty enough for that, but he's far too good. Don't waste him on the Bees."

Flowers and Bees, huh?

'I can't believe they made this pun, I cannot believe that they made a Honeypot Mission pun. Flowers and Bees and Honeypot...' Desmond had to suppress a groan of pain at this.

"Do not worry, Faheem. While I did consider it for a while, the boy is not suited for Honeypot missions. He is too... temperamental. Already too scarred. If you request him as your student, I will allow it. I have to ask, are you sure you do not wish to wait for your eldest? I have heard that you always wanted to take him on as a student."

"The new boy will be ready for solo missions by the time Malik is grown enough, I do not worry."

'Solo missions, huh?'

Desmond had never actually gone on solo missions. He'd never actually been trained to gather information about his targets, never had to do all the work his ancestors did. He'd always had Shaun, Rebecca and his dad. He knew the theory, of course, but actually doing it, that was something else entirely. 

"I see. When do you intend to leave with him?"

"In a month."

'I have a month to show Altaïr what can be done with the Eagle Vision? Challenge accepted.'

And here he was, two weeks into that month. 

The challenge should not have been accepted.

Altaïr knew _nothing_ about the Eagle Vision. He'd thought the boy at least had some sort of idea what his 'gift', as he called it, was able to do. He could only only knew about the _colors._ That's all he knew of it. He had never even used it to map out an area by activating his Eagle Vision in a high spot, didn't even _know_ it was possible. Somehow, by sheer dumb luck, he'd probably done it once and, being the genius he was, had managed to learn how to do it again, but Umar had never taught his son about the Eagle Vision, nothing.

'Fucking Umar. Everything about this was lost to time because you didn't want your son to rely on it. If Altaïr had known about it, maybe we wouldn't have had to go back just to try to change everything! Maybe there would have been NOTHING to change! Maybe I wouldn't have had to kill Lucy, because I would have known about her earlier, maybe I wouldn't have had to watch the world _burn_ because of some misplaced parental instincts to save my life that my dad got at the last second! Maybe...'

Lost in his own thoughts, he didn't notice that the boy had joined him on the roof before he spoke.

"Des! There you are! Are you gonna teach me about the Eagle's Gift?"

The man closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to shut down the memories that plagued him whenever he was alone, trying to convince himself that Altaïr was no threat. 

'Everything is fine, I'm fine, the world that burned doesn't exist anymore, I'm here to make sure of it, I'm fine, we're fine, I'm _fine_ , Abstergo doesn't exist anymore, yet, not ever again, he's not Abstergo, everyone is not gonna die again, everything is fine...'

Once he could trust himself not to cry or scream at the first sound leaving his lips, Desmond looked at Altaïr, flashing his Eagle Vision just to see the boy's blue. Reassured by this, he had to admit, fairly pointless verification, he took a moment to observe the boy. It always surprised him just how happy he looked all the time. The toothy, carefree, blindingly joyful smiles he gave everyone who showed the tiniest dose of concern for him. His face was almost glowing under the bright lights of the sun, sweat soaked honey brown strands of hair sticking to his face.

Unlike his (past) adult self, he never wore his hood unless instructed to. Never felt the need to hide his face. His older self never removed his hood, not even to sleep, never feeling safe enough to remove it.

'The happy facade is enough of a mask already, now that I think about it... well, this isn't the time to be thinking about that. Now's the time to teach him.'

Desmond cocked his head to the side, raising his shaded face to 'face' the boy's.

"Eagle's Gift, huh? Cute."

"H-hey! It's not cute! That's what you said it was! You said, that some ancestors had bonded with eagles, and that the eagles gave them a gift, their vision. The Eagle's Gift!"

"Technically, I said that the Eagle Vision is a gift from the eagles, so you're not wrong, but this is still cute. I like it, though. Eagle's Gift. Yeah, gonna use it. So anyway, as I've said before, Synchronizing form a high place is one of the basic skills. If you can see the Colors, you can use the Synchronization. We've worked with it, you can already do it from the ground, mapped out small areas of land and keep track of the people who were in the circle, the Scan, but now you need to learn how to use it from heights. This form is called the Cartography. I planed on making you practice from the roofs down in Masyaf itself, get you used to it slowly. Since you decided to join me here, despite the fact that there's a unsaid rule about letting people be alone on the castle's highest roof, well, this is where you'll Synchronize."

"Oh, really? So that's why people don't come bother me when I'm here?"

"Yep."

"Oh. I didn't know."

"Well, no one ever told you, did they? So it's fine. Now come on, crouch down over... there, I guess, close your eyes and activate the _Eagle's Gift_."

"Stop teasing me...." the boy said but he got up from the edge of the roof and crouched down in a place that allowed him a fair amount of stability, perfect should he loose his balance for a little while. He took a deep breath and close his eyes, activating the Gift.

Desmond immediately grabbed him by the back of his tunic and pulled him into his arms, not too keen on seeing the boy falling to his demise. He held the shivering, trembling form to his chest gently. 

"It's... I know so much... there's an unguarded chest two floors down... three bales of hay in the courtyard, seven safe Leap of Faith spots from this roof, someone is a spy down in the city, she's glowing gold, no red, no, gold..."

Desmond held the boy as he talked about everything he saw, dazed and awed by the knowledge he'd gathered. His eyes were opened and glazed over, the energy it'd taken out of him and assault on his synapses almost too much to bare but he was Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, a man who had had a mind so strong that his Spartan hadn't been able to control him, to twist his mind in any way. He'd been able to bend an Apple to _his_ will. So really, the Cartography wasn't anything close to dangerous, maybe just overwhelming. 

"I... this is so cool..."

"Hahaha, of course you'd find that 'cool'. How is your head?"

"It hurts... it really hurts, but this is great. Wait, there's a spy in Masyaf, this _isn't_ great, we need to tell the Mentor!"

Altaïr tried to get up then but wobbled before he could even get to his feet. He fell right back on Desmond's chest, his hands rubbing at his temples.

"I... I'm not feeling very good..."

"Yeah, take it slow, drink some tea, eat a few dates. Now, about the spy, don't worry about her, Al Mualim as known about her for a few days, one of Souffiane's man found out about her. They're keeping a close eye on her."

That was a lie, as far as he knew the woman hadn't been found but Altaïr didn't need to know about that. She was a Templar agent, she needed to complete her mission, as much as he didn't like it. He couldn't fuck with the timeline too much.

 _Yet._

'I need the timeline to be as similar as possible... damn it all.'

So he lied even more to the boy.

"Truth is, Al Mualim knows pretty much everything going on in Masyaf. Suspicious people, he knows about them. So there's no need to tell him any of that."

"Oh, okay!"

If Desmond felt guilt at the blind trust Altaïr had for him, well, it was necessary.

'The war between Templars and Assassins, Juno and Minerva... if it hadn't been for it, the world wouldn't have burned... I'll do EVERYTHING to make sure that this time, it'll be different. If it takes a lie or two, then that's a price I'm willing to pay.'


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some trauma for you, hey! Some trauma for me, hey! Some trauma for we!  
> Everyone is Masyaf has trauma, and I will give them more because of course I will.  
> PLEASE, I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL, I DO NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT MEDICINE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. I went with stuff I know kinda work and stuff I know could be found in the medieval Middle East, honey, vinegar. Arabic medicine was probably the most advanced in the world at that time, so I went with something that would prooooobably work but would still prooooobably not be the best way to take care of the problem. I am no historian, no doctor, so ehhhh? I just kinda needed that scene to be able to help the story move forward, and I wanted to make it gory and NOT fun because I need it to have an impact.  
> So as you might have guessed, graphic description of injuries this chapter. If you want to skip the gory scene, skip the last POV change, it'll start with someone screaming for help.  
> Read the end notes for a summary of that part, and IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS in the notes so please do read the notes everyone!

Altaïr wasn't sleeping. 

At all. 

Farida and Amira had noticed that, while the boy still visited at night, he never took a nap in some his usual spot anymore, and always went back to the courtyard rather than to the barracks. The two women had already been a bit worried about the boy's lack of sleep but now... now it wasn't just a little anymore.

So Farida, after taking a nap right after her work night, and after making sure that her boys were in their classrooms and not causing mayhem everywhere, looked for Desmond. She walked around in the fortress, her daughter clutching her long tunic in her tiny fist, her little legs doing their best to keep up to the frankly ridiculously slow pace that the young woman was going at. She asked around to know of the teenager's location, not too sure where he'd be, or even if he was in the fortress. For all she knew, he could be out in Masyaf itself, or maybe even outside the city. She was ready to give up, her whinny daughter and pained lower back a strong case against keeping on walking when a master Assassin pointed her in the right direction. she thanked the man ("Souffiane, my lady. Glad to meet you" he had said with a smile, "you seem to be looking for something, maybe I could help you?" (my lady, really, what a strange man...)) and headed for the ramparts, which everyone could freely access during the day. Once she reached them and realized she'd have to climb up stairs, she groaned. She picked her daughter up in her arms, trying to hold her in a way that didn't feel too uncomfortable for her growing belly, and started the ascent. The climb was terribly tiring with the extra weight of a two years old and pregnancy so she was sure that she looked as out of breath as she felt once she got to the top.

She took a moment to breathe and wipe the sweat on her forehead before putting her squirming child on the floor. Qadira wobbled-ran straight into Desmond's leg and fell to the floor, her arms trying to wrap around the teenager's calves, half formed sentences and constant babbling greeting him. 

The teenager looked down at the little girl and bent down to pick her up, holding her against his hip.

"Well hello there. Running away from your mother, are you?" he asked.

Farida huffed loudly. His hooded head turned in her direction, a smile on his face. 

"As you can see, I have not lost control of my child as much as you seem to believe" she said teasingly. "Hello, Desmond. We have not talked in a few days. Tell me, have you finally been put to use in the fortress or are you still not doing anything?"

"I still have not been given any task in the fortress. I have been given scrolls, and I have been ordered to spar with different weapons multiple times a day but that is all. I tried getting assigned somewhere, even temporarily, but apparently no one has to do anything in the fortress if they are sent on missions outside of Masyaf."

"Oh, is that so? Then you should come visit us sometime. Amira and I, we'd love to be able to sleep, if you could take care of the kids, bring her Laith when he's hungry, take my boys to their classes, maybe even help with some chores, as you have so kindly proposed to do before...?"

Desmond gently pulled Qadira's hands away from his throwing knives, sheathing the one she had manages to almost entirely pull out without either of them noticing and hiked her higher up his torso, far away from the numerous weapons that seemed to cover his entire waist (not to mention the hidden ones). 

"I don't mind at all" he said, pulling out a dried date from a pouch on his hip and handing it to her daughter to keep her distracted. The girl immediately started sucking and munching on it while looking around. "After all, as you said, I'm the one who told you you could ask any time I was free, didn't I?"

"Well, yes, but it wasn't an issue before. Now, with the pregnancy being more advanced, I'm so tired... ah, Desmond, why did you have to show your skills? You were so useful in the kitchen, I could finally sleep at nights instead of days, and if Noor could finally get back to work now that her baby is born..."

"To be completely honest, I do miss the kitchens. I had considerably less bruises. But tell me, why are you really here? I feel like you asking me to take care of the children wasn't the reason why you looked for me."

"Yes, well. Have you seen the little eagle recently?"

"Little eagle, huh? I now have a new nickname for Altaïr. The last time was yesterday. Being who he is, he couldn't just do nothing on his free day so he climbed all the way to the top of the castle's roof" Farida looked at said roof, incredulous "just to speak to me so that I would train him. He kind of... daydreamed for a while, in a way. Why?"

She stopped starting at the top of the castle and focused back on the teenager.

"Amira and me, we're worried. He seems... tired."

He snorted. 

"Well that's a way to put it. He looks like he's gonna keel over any second. He spends his entire days training with the other Novices and he sneaks into my room at night so that I'll train with him."

**"I'm sorry, why are you training him at night?"**

She repressed the immediate fear that raising her voice at him provoked in her.

He wasn't her husband. 

He was someone good, someone kind. 

So she breathed in. Exhaled. Remained calm. 

Her fear went away, and she managed to find amusement in the nervous babbling of the teenager.

"Well, he doesn't fall asleep anyway, and he looks at me like... like, a kitten, no, a puppy, yeah no. Got it! He looks like a baby goat, all smiles and adorable faces. I can't just say no to him! I tell him all the time that he should sleep but he never listens. Then I interrupt the training when it's midnight and he still tries to get me to train him _more_. Of course I refuse! But then he just goes of somewhere and practice throwing knives and climbing around all the time. When I decide not to train him he wakes up some of the other Novices and trains with them instead."

"Well... I guess I can't be mad at you for that..."

They both stayed silent for a while, Qadira slowly chewing her way up the date.

"You know, even before you started staying in the fortress, he used to visit every night. He fell asleep pretty often, never for long but he did. Well, there was this time, he slept the entire night, otherwise, no. He always stayed really quiet, just ate something and rolled up in a ball in a small hidden spot. When he talked about anything it was always you, all the time."

"Really?"

"Honestly, Desmond. He is attached to you like Qarida is to my skirts. I know you feel like you have not spent much time with him, which is true, I suppose. Three weeks in total, but you saw him every single one of these days. You are an easy boy to trust, even easier to like, and the way you act with Altaïr... well, don't underestimate how loyal the boy is to you."

Desmond sighed, looking at the city that started at the foot of the castle. 

"I know. People trust me too easily, it's almost scary at times... anyway. If I come see you and Amira tomorrow, that's alright with you?"

Farida thought of all the chores that she and Amira needed to do the next day, chores that Desmond had so kindly agreed to help with... she smiled sweet and warm as she answered.

"That would be lovely."

"Maaaaliiiiik, come ON! Hurry up, you said you wanted to train with Abbas and Rauf and me!"

Malik was still snoring a bit before Altaïr pushed him off of his bed. He fell on the floor and huffed, groaned in pain while holding his hip.

"Asshole..."

But Malik got up, put his pants back on (he was always sleeping naked, was he completely without shame?) then put a tunic over his shyly muscled torso, cracked his neck and stretched his back. He then bent down to put on his boots and Altaïr, realizing he had been staring this whole time, finally looked away, his cheeks going red in the darkness of the room. 

"Alright, I'm awake, what now?"

"Now, we avoid the patrols, they're following pattern five, so as long as we time ourselves well while climbing down the walls, there's no way we'll be caught. So, here's what we're going to do..."

Once Altaïr was done explaining everyone's role, the boys started the operation to leave the barracks section of the fortress. The three boys, all aware of Altaïr's Gift, since they'd been the first ones to see that his eyes turned a glowing gold at times, would be waiting for his cues to climb down. Altaïr would look through walls and floors to make sure that the way was clear for them, and then follow. 

Simple, yes, efficient, also yes. So the boys followed Altaïr's directives, made themselves look small against the walls while climbing down if necessary, standing guard while their friend was climbing down after them and soon enough, they were out of the barracks and running towards the kitchen, pushing each other around and laughing. 

They bumped into Souffiane (Altaïr once again falling onto his butt after running at full speed into a wall of muscles, his friends laughing at him as he, once again, blushed), who just sighed and helped Altaïr to get up. He cursed under his breath about new patrol patterns and too smart Novices but none of the boys really noticed, talking too loud for the low voice to be heard by them. They stopped running after that though, walking at a far more relaxed speed instead. 

When they entered the kitchen, a far more tired looking than usual Farida and a grumpy looking Amira welcomed them with weary smiles. 

"Hello, I'm guessing you want some food to bring outside?" Farida asked.

"Yeah! Are... are you okay?"

"Oh, yes, yes, just, Amira's baby, he cried all day, all entire day. We didn't get much sleep."

"Pff, you work in the kitchen, who cares if your tir-Rauf! ALTAÏR!" 

Abbas was holding his cheek where Altaïr had punched him, his hood still askew from Rauf's slap at the back of his head.

"Don't be like that Abbas! She's really nice, and she works all night to feed people and she has children and..."

"And she left her husband, if she'd stayed with him she wouldn't be in this situation! She wouldn't need to _work_ , just take care of her house and children like women are supposed to do!"

"Yeah? Then say that to Amalia's face then!"

Abbas visibly palled under his hood. He answered in a tiny, high pitched voice.

"Amalia is no woman, she's a _monster!_ "

"Yeah. No. She's just strong, and she's making _us_ strong, even if most of us are assholes like you. All women can be strong like that, and Farida is _scary_ when she gets mad. _Reeeeallyyyyyy_ scary. Apologize to Farida."

"... 'm sorry..."

Despite the fact that everyone knew how dishonest the apology was, no one said a word. Farida simply smiled at Altaïr, ruffled his hair, and handed him a bag that Amira had filled with food. 

"Don't forget to sleep once in a while, Altaïr. Same for all you boys, we don't need exhausted Novices. Now shoo, we have work to do!"

The boys left, promptly forgetting about the incident in the kitchen.

"So, we have food, and we can go wherever we want. Do we train or do we have fun?" Rauf asked.

Two snorts and outright laughter answered his question.

A dejected sigh followed in Rauf's too deep for his age voice.

"Training it is then."

"... lp, someone HELP! **HELP**!!"

Desmond woke up with a jolt, the young frightened voice in the courtyard waking him up. He slipped in head outside and saw someone running to the castle and two silhouettes holding another one up.

A quick flash of Eagle Vision confirmed his fear. 

Blue surrounded by gold. 

Altaïr was the injured one.

Altaïr had never gotten injured at this age, except for his fight with Abbas. A few scratches, maybe a bruise once in a while, but never an injury that would warrant that kind of panic.

What was going on?

Desmond practically flew down the wall, his fingers barely griping rocks long enough to slow down his descent into a less dangerous one and, as soon as his feet touched the ground, he ran to the Novices. 

'Malik and Abbas' he noticed distantly, grabbing Altaïr's prone form from their tired arms, arranging the boy's bleeding, broken arm on his belly to keep it from dangling down. A quick, clumsy bandage had been tied around it. He started running towards the infirmary at full speed, barely slowed down by the Altaïr's weight. The two Novices ran after him, exhausted but determined to make sure that their friend would be brought to safety. 

Or maybe to make sure that he wouldn't die alone.

As Desmond entered the fortress, the third silhouette, Rauf, was running back to them. 

"Third door of the left wing, this floor" he wheezed out but already moving back to the infirmary.

Desmond didn't acknowledge the boy but ran straight towards the left wing. The door, bless the healer, was already open. There was a table in the center of the room, on which Desmond placed Altaïr's unmoving form. The healer, dressed in stained but clean white clothes, started giving out orders. 

"Novices, you're making hot but not burning hot water, other one, bring the bottle with clear liquid, other one, look for the needle and some thread, Disciple, you're holding him down just in case."

Everyone executed their orders, Desmond placing himself on the uninjured (as far as he knew) side of the boy, and placed a hand on his chest, the other one ready to move and restrain the boy as efficiently as possible if he started moving.

"Stomach strong enough to stand looking at injuries?" the healer asked him.

"Yes." 

"Good."

As soon as the hot water was brought to him, he poured some over the bandages, which were already drying, and cut them up and well as the tunic's sleeves. The sight made Abbas go a little green but the Novice didn't say anything, didn't look away.

'Taking notes, learning, so that the next time he'll know what to do except a bandage that barely helped in any way.'

The healer cleaned the wound with the water, enough to be able to see what exactly was causing the bleeding. The boy's upper arm looked half as long as it should have, and almost twice as big, swollen up so much that the section between the shoulder and elbow looked round instead of long.

Both Desmond and the healer cursed.

The cause of the bleeding? 

The boy's bone had pierced the skin, pointing towards the inside of his body.

Rauf promptly fainted as soon as he put the bottle of clear vinegar on the table and _saw_ the actual injury.

As for Malik, he looked with almost perverse interest at the wound, eyes analyzing everything he could, from the angle of the bone to how much paler the injured boy looked, saying, out loud, that there was probably a trail of blood from the Masyaf road all the way to the fortress, because Altaïr had bled, a lot. Desmond couldn't help but think that this was a bit creepy but the boy might have simply been in shock... not likely, knowing Malik. 

"Change of plan" the healer said. "Green one, grab fainted one and make sure he didn't injure himself while falling, that's the last thing we need right now. You" he said while pointing in Malik's general direction "you're taking the Disciple's place, hold him down by the right side of the chest and left hip. You, come here, you're helping me set the arm back in place, and hopefully we'll do it fast enough to prevent him from bleeding out."

And right then, right before what would no doubt be the most painful thing he had ever experienced yet, Altaïr opened his eyes.

"De... Desm..." the boy didn't even get to finish saying the name before the healer pushed a piece of leather covered wood in the boy's mouth. 

"Scream as much as you need, boy, but don't move" he said. 

A sudden clarity lit up in the boy's eyes. Faint pain and fear too. Malik gulped audibly (ah, so he wasn't unaffected, he might not have been as much of a closeted psychopath as expected) and pressed down more on his friend's upper body, not yet applying too much pressure. Desmond grabbed his left shoulder and upper arm firmly, causing a gasp of pain as he squeezed the inflamed arm. The healer grabbed his forearm and elbow, ready to pull the bone back into place.

"Boy, in three, two, one..."

Altaïr screamed. Tears ran down his cheeks. But he didn't move one inch, stayed so immobile that Malik stopped holding his chest and instead grabbed his uninjured hand and squeezed it, his interest in the injury and its treatment insignificant compared to trying to comfort his friend. 

"Don't you have something to give him?" Desmond asked through gritted teeth.

"It's all too strong for a child, I'm afraid it would kill him" the healer answered back while still pulling the bone back into place. 

So Altaïr kept screaming and crying until his bone was back in his swollen arm, approximately where it needed to be. Pained noises escaped him as the healer felt around the injury, more fresh blood running down the injury now that the bone was not there to stop some of it from flowing out.

"Now the fun part begins. I need to feel inside to make sure that the bone is in the right place. I'd open the injury more to look but... he doesn't need even less blood, I think we can agree."

"Oh for fu..."

A pathetic little noise escaped Altaïr's lips, his sweat soaked hair pushed away from his face by Malik. 

"I'm sorry boy, I need to." 

Altaïr nodded his head and squeezed his eyes shut, biting on the piece of wood in his mouth and breathing unevenly as a finger, washed with vinegar, was checking inside the wound to check on the bone. A quick realignment, feeble scream and second check up later, the healer confirmed that the bone should heal well considering the situation. Washing the wound again with a generous splash of water and vinegar, the healer ordered Malik to make Altaïr drink some water while he started on sewing the wound shut. 

By the time that the healer and Desmond finished covering the injury with a honey salve and then a bandage, Malik had managed to make Altaïr drink a reasonable amount of water and the injured boy had fallen asleep, entirely too exhausted from the pain and blood loss to stay awake a second longer.

"Now, we hope he survives the blood loss. Novice, what happened exactly? The one who fainted, he told me you guys were in the city?"

"Y..." Malik took a deep breath. "Yes. Altaïr was showing off a move he copied from Desmond, but he's really short so his arm didn't reach far enough and he fell down the rooftops..."

"I see. That's all. Go clean up and get some sleep, eat something if you can, some cheese and fruits. If you see the other two, get them to do the same thing."

Malik nodded and left, walking away slowly, the adrenaline he'd probably been feeling fading down some. 

"Now, we need to clean this all up, starting with him. Help me undress him..."

Desmond helped the healer, did everything he was asked to do, went to the kitchen, covered in blood, to ask the girls to make clear soup for Altaïr. They immediately agreed and started working on it, gave him some food and warm tea, which he ate and drank without thinking too much about it. He answered their questions, confirmed he would still come over to help them during the day, that he would still this and that, that he was fine...

He wondered if the meager amount of money that Al Mualim had given him would be able to buy the supplies he'd need to write down everything he knew about Eagle Vision for Altaïr. 

'I've already changed the timeline too much. I can't be involved in his life any longer. I can't. I'll still teach him about the Eagle's Gif... Vision, but I can't keep on changing things as long as he's concerned. He still hasn't told Abbas about their fathers, which he should have done a month ago, he's friends with Rauf instead of kind of ignoring him half of the time, and the worst part, Malik and him are still rivals but they _like_ each other, much sooner that they _should_... I need to remove myself from his life as much as I can. I'm afraid that removing myself like that will make him become the recluse he was supposed to become as a Novice. No, I'm not afraid of that. Hopefully that's what's going to happen. It _needs_ to happen. I'm sorry, Altaïr. This pain, it was my fault, and it'll still be my fault. I'm sorry.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SUMMARY OF THE LAST POV: Desmond is woken up by a child screaming for help. Altaïr, out with his three friends, injured himself, his arm broke and it pierced his skin, he is bleeding out. Desmond brings him to the infirmary, helps the healer for the treatments and learns from Malik that Altaïr was trying to reproduce a move he'd seen Desmond do. Realizing that the timeline has been changed too much already, Desmond decides to keep on teaching the boy to use his Eagle Vision but to avoid him at all cost as soon as he's leaving with Faheem.  
> IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT  
> So since you guys are insane, absolutely insane, more than 100 kudos (edit: last time I checked before publishing the chapter, it was 112 kudos and 20 bookmarks!), man, I really, really do feel the love, it's kinda hard to believe, holy shit, I have an announcement for you guys! Until Chapter 8, name your favorite secondary character, Original (like Farida, Amira and their families, Souffiane, Amalia) and cannon characters (like Labib, Ahmad, Malik, Abbas, Faheem) in the comment section (so chapter 6, 7, and 8).  
> The most popular characters will get a One Shot. I'll be doing two One Shots, one for an OC and one for a Cannon character. So please, drop a comment with the name of the characters that you want to know more about. You can place one vote per chapter, so a total of three votes each! I will compile all the names one week after Chapter 8 will have been published, and the winning characters will be announced in the Chapter 9 notes!  
> You guys really are the best, thank you so much for reading this story!


	7. A Future Long Past, A Letter To Lucy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coucou les gens!  
> Remember to vote for your favorite secondary characters, both an OC and a cannon one! One one shot for each categories of characters! You can leave one vote for chapter 6, 7 and 8, and one week after chapter 8 I will stop counting new votes. Basically, you all have three votes for each category, and still have some time. These one shots are gifts for you guys, I really appreciate you all, so I want to be able to give you something as thanks, so please vote!  
> \\(^u^)/  
> Fun fact: The letter was supposed to be the summary when I started writing the story. The story was supposed to start in the Future-that-has-become-the-past but then I changed the structure of the story and it didn't make sense anymore. It was a lot shorter, a lot less ramble-y. I'm kinda glad I used it for a chapter instead, it makes more sense as a Future Long Past chapter, I feel like.

Dear Lucy, 

I'm... not too sure how to start this. 

I guess, I should start with saying that I'm sorry. I know you're not. I know you wouldn't be. Your loyalties, I do believe that they shifted for a reason, you know? So, I'm not mad. I might have stayed loyal, in a way, but I ran away. I can't be mad at you for turning your coat and joining them.

I mean, that's how humans work. We like structure, order, or maybe even Order. It's not a bad thing, it was your right. The things you did, they were wrong, but turning your back to the Assassins, that was your right. Not something Assassins should be fighting against.

Yes, Order, the Isu Order, is what made Adam and Eve steal an Apple (Cortland, actually. Ah, but you don't know her. That's fine, you probably wouldn't like the fact that I'm semi pulling a Master Chief with the Piece of Eden that killed you) and escape Eden, but just because they did doesn't mean everyone should. Order, if there's too much of it, well, it allows Everything and suppresses Permitted. It makes Everything that shouldn't exist True. 

You know how humans live according to human constructs? Money, religion, even gender. They have value because we give them value. Gods actually exist while we believe in them, they might not be able to do _everything_ that religion says that they can do but if enough humans believe in Allah, Allah exists in a way, same with Zeus and Râ and even the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Since Gods cannot exist, our beliefs will give birth to something else instead. Humans will be born with the ability to lead a nation into prosperity and peace, into justice, they will be likable and charismatic, smart, and their motivations are not exactly their own. They will sacrifice themselves if necessary, always, without a doubt, if they think it will lead people to staying alive, because that is what they are created to do. If they can't, they will try to do something else, create or dream. They are saviors and sometimes killers. 

Jesus of Nazareth. Mother Teresa. Haytham Kenway. Martin Luther King J.. Anne Frank. Kadar Al Sayf. Elise de la Serre and her father. 

Me.

All people with fairly high Isu lineage, because Isu are what our religions are based upon.

Sadly, the 'glow', the power that's both hidden deep and plain to see that ~~these people~~ we have makes us either die too young to actually accomplish what we want to accomplish, too young to ensure that our words won't become twisted in someone else's mouth. Dying too soon, which will happen to me, which happened to Kadar and Elise and Martin and Jesus and even Haytham. The glow might lead us down a path very, very little overall power despite all the actual good we've done, maybe because of humility, maybe because we'd rather help the individual instead of the masses, like Mother Teresa, and sometimes we end up doing very few achievements in life, like Jennifer Kenway. So even though people believe in _us_ , technically, we don't end up being very helpful overall, as far as Messiahs go.

Especially since, as soon as enough people stop believing in something greater than themselves, we become nothing more than simple humans, the pull that people feel towards us and that causes blind trust or manic distrust, never neutrality, well it fades into nothing and we end up being nothing more than mere humans. Considering that, can we say that it was real, in any way, that any of our power was True? No, it's all fake. Nothing is True. Everything is Permitted. So, even though Everything can exist, not all of it will be True?

Anyway, I'm just rambling off. I don't even think I make any sense, I probably don't. I really think I don't. 

I guess I'll just, move on to writing things that might actually matter, not that finding out that my ancestors were Messiahs of some sort or even _myself_ doesn't mater but well. This letter wasn't supposed to be about that.

I just. I know you're dead. I know you betrayed us, betrayed me, might have lied about, well, everything that actually mattered outside of us. I still miss our conversations, the way you'd listen to my half formed thoughts and worries. How you would ask questions that helped me clarify my words, make them understandable. Man, all of this, you'd have helped me make it clearer. You didn't just pretend to listen, you always actually listened. 

I don't think you were ever fake with me. Ever. The Eagle Vision doesn't lie, you know? It's about intentions. Your intentions towards me, every time I used the Vision on you, they've never been to hurt me, never been to betray me. That's not even how you saw it yourself. No, the moments that it mattered, every time we fought together, it was real. You wanted to protect me and you trusted me to protect you. You can't fake that, the Eagle Vision can't fake that. 

That first kiss we shared, how it forced my Eagle Vision into activity. That too, couldn't have been faked. 

Every time you were above me, in the dead of the night, or under. Every time you bit my shoulders to muffle your sounds and every time I sucked a bruise into the soft skin of your breasts, every little bruises I left on your hips and every scratches on my back, all of it, each time the Vision flashed, you were glowing blue. You weren't lying, weren't faking anything. You truly wanted me.

Every time I woke up screaming, every time you were shaking when glass shattered too close, every time we ended up simply close, holding hands and bumping shoulders to reassure each other, every time I looked, you were blue, you felt safe. You wanted my hand in your hair to calm you down, you wanted to bring me back to the present, away from the ghosts of the past and there _with you_. Each time you made me use the Vision on you when I was in between the Bleeding and present, just to help ground me, you were blue. You truly wanted me not just to be sane but to be _fine_.

Every time we lied awake, talking about nothing just to forget for a while what cluster fuck we were stuck in, every little patterns you drew on mu chest, ever laughter, every little kisses on our lips and necks and shoulders and hands and every place we could reach, ever smuggled chocolate bars we shared between the two of us instead of giving any to Rebecca and Shaun like we were supposed to, every whispered I love yous, you meant them as much as I did. You wanted _us_ as much as I did.

Despite me learning to be an Assassin and the fact that I shared my beliefs with them, despite the fact that you were there to collect the information in my brain and nothing else, in theory that is, you wanted us. So really, I'm not sure that you couldn't have been swayed back into the Brotherhood, or maybe, at the least, a state of neutrality.

So, yeah. I'm sorry that I didn't manage to fight Cortland and Juno. I'm so fucking sorry. I don't know that your death was necessary. One way or another, I loved you oh so much, and I killed you. You were glowing red at that moment. The moment that you thought of finally, finally betraying the Brotherhood for the last time by taking the Apple to the Order. So I killed you, under the combined influence of Cortland and Juno and because of the red I saw. 

The thing I didn't see until your red faded though, was that little spot of gold. 

So small.

So weak, fragile, new.

It only stopped glowing when your red disappeared entirely, a little weak flicker before it went as grey, void, as you.

So, I'm sorry, Lucy. I hope that I had no choice than to kill you to save the world, because otherwise, I have killed not only the woman which I loved but the child we were gonna have together, child I never would have known but a child I had wanted my hole life.

A life for the whole world is a price I'm willing to pay. 

I have to admit though, the life of a mother and unborn child first, then that of the father...

The price of survival is steep, when it starts involving entire families and unborn children.

It's still a price I'm willing to pay, but I'd really, really prefer if I don't have to ever again.

If heaven or hell or limbo or whatever exists, you can scream at me and be mad as much as you want. I'll deserve it. You glowed so bright whenever I talked about children, almost white because of how blue you were, you wanted children so much, wished to protect and love and cherish so much. I robed you of motherhood, myself of a child, and the child of a life. 

I can never forgive myself for that. I can never ask you to do so as well.

So yeah, I hope, I truly do, that your death was necessary, Lucy, I hope that your death was so necessary that the blood of our child is on my hands for a fucking good reason. I hope I was fooled by you, I hope that you were a bitch that somehow managed to cheat my Eagle Vision, I hope that you would have gotten an abortion after my death. I hope you lied to me, that you weren't the nice person you were, that you weren't human but monster. I wish that Clay dying like he did, in front of your eyes when you could have saved him, I hope you felt no regret, no shame, I hope you used me like a toy each time we made love, hope you never wanted my kisses and looked at me as important only because of my lineage. I can't deal with any of this otherwise.

So, I have decided to hate you, maybe childishly, maybe with reasons, maybe not. I don't know. I still fucking miss you. I still love you. I hope you can rest in peace, despite all of that.

I still love you, though. Both of you.

~~Safety and p~~

Fuck it, why not.

Safety and peace.

May the Father of understanding guide you.

See you soon. 

Desmond 

P.S.- I know you assholes read this even though I told you not to. Go fuck yourselves. I love you all. Goodbye.

P.P.S.- I guess I'm sorry, dad. I know you hoped for grandchildren, once upon a time. My siblings, they could have had children if they hadn't been killed. I was your last hope. Now, unless you have other kids... well. Is it weird that I'm apologizing for something I can't really control? Still. I'm sorry, dad. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't read top notes but read the end notes:  
> Coucou les gens!  
> Remember to vote for your favorite secondary characters, both an OC and a cannon one! One one shot for each categories of characters! You can leave one vote for chapter 6, 7 and 8, and one week after chapter 8 I will stop counting new votes. Basically, you all have three votes for each category, and still have some time. These one shots are gifts for you guys, I really appreciate you all, so I want to be able to give you something as thanks, so please vote!  
> \\(^u^)/  
> (If anyone can guess the FFVII Series reference, both the game and the sentence, I'd give you something if I could but I can't really so I guess, you'll get a congratulations?)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEYO PEOPLE!  
> Votes have been coming in, good! As I have said, this is for you guys, so I am happy to see them names coming in! Let me remind you, you will have one more week after this chapter is published (so I'll stop accepting the votes the 10th at night) to write down the names of your favorite Original and Cannon characters. A whole bunch of characters are introduced, which are also characters you can vote for! 
> 
> This is the last chapter before a pretty big time skip, so it's very different from the other chapters. I just felt like it was perfect for an End of Arc 1 chapter, tell me what you think!

Despite the fact that he was now penniless, Desmond was satisfied.

He had enough paper and quills and ink, both to practice writing Arabic legibly (sure, he could read Arabic script, but just because he could read it didn't mean he was able to write it well. Yet. (and it also certainly didn't mean that he knew how to use quills and ink) and to actually to be able to write down everything that the boy might need to know about the Eagle's Gift... no. Eagle Vision. 

So after spending the day (again) with Farida and Amira's children, playing games and making sure everyone was where they needed to be, after sparing against a Master Assassin or four and making sure to loose, believably, to two of them, he sat down, in the dark, in his little room, with an entire jug of tea, some food, two lit candles and a small collection of more and started writing.

He had two weeks left.

He needed to write this all down, like he was running out of time. He'd write day and night, like he was running out of time, because he really was. He didn't have the time to teach Altaïr everything before he left, he absolutely needed to get all of this down on paper.

'I might never get another shot. I can't throw it away.'

William was hiding under a pile of rubble with a trembling Julie cuddled to his chest and a crying Brian hugging his arm, sitting in an almost dry of patch amongst the mucky puddles surrounding him. 

"Are you sure they're okay?" Julie asked, her bright blue eyes full of tears in her pale, incredibly pale face.

"Yes, I promise they are. We're here, right? I'm still William, even though I'm a lot younger than before! You see? It worked. The Orb worked. Cortland didn't lie, we're all safe, all alive, and the others, they're far, but they're okay."

Julie nodded her head, sweet little thing that she was, but Brian snorted.

"We don't know that they're okay! We don't!" the boy whimpered through his tears.

William moved Julie a bit so he could collect the crying boy in his arm too, picking him up easily with just one hand, the strength of this twenty-eight years old body surprising him as well as being a relief. His seventy-something (exact dates had become something of a blur) body had been in constant pain, aching all the time, his fingers had started looking bony and knobbly. His legs were shaking often, his eyes hadn't been as reliable anymore, and the slowly growing mass on his chest didn't give him any hope of living longer than an additional year or two, if that. He'd never actually grown weak, had always been stronger than considered normal for his age, but he certainly wasn't as strong as before, wasn't as fast. 

A thick strand of brown hair fell in front of his face, reaching the top of his cheekbone, the weight of the children barely felt, his eyes seeing tiny details in their faces that he'd never seen before, like the freckles on Brian's cheeks, the Abstergo triangle carved into Julie's left temple, from three months ago (the fact that the girl had decided to keep the scar... William didn't know how to feel about that). Barely ten and twelve, completely lost and scared and yet determined in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar language and unfamiliar... everything. 

If he was being truly honest, despite his seventy-and-whatever years, the desire to curl up under a table and start crying with them was overwhelming.

"We'll be fine" he said in his voice that was so much younger "I swear we'll be fine."

All around, people were shouting in French, and a man in a white robe with a Red Cross walked close to them. William got up and, with the children in his arms, walked up to the man. 

"We'll be fine."

Abbas was, honestly, tired of people telling him how sorry they were about his father, how it didn't affect him in any way, didn't mean anything about the Sofian name. Everyone looked away when he asked what they meant. Couldn't people just let him mourn his father in peace if they were just gonna harass him and not explain anything? 

The men's words were so confusing to him, he went to Al Mualim, seeking answers about his father's death, unaware of anything surrounding it and annoyed by everyone who was avoiding the issue. Even the old man didn't answer him, and it was absolutely maddening. He complained about it to Altaïr, and even his best friend seemed to know SOMETHING and yet he DIDN'T SAY IT!

"Why does no one tell me ANYTHING?" he screamed into a pillow that night.

The sound of sheets rustling to his left made him look in this direction, afraid that he'd woken someone up. When he realized who it'd been, he almost laughed.

'Yeah, as if I woke him up. He's probably been staring at the guards through the walls all night.'

Altaïr, his golden eyes glowing faintly in the dark of the room, gestured him over to his bed, the shape of his uninjured arm barely visible in the night. Abbas got up, having nothing better to do except scream in his pillow anyway. He sat in front of him on the bed, they crossed their legs and ended up almost forehead to forehead, their hushed whispers barely audible to each other, much less to the other occupants of the room. They talked and talked, about everythings and nothings that they both knew already. Then Altaïr spoke of something much more important than the fact that Farida was nice and always gave him honeyed milk and dates. He spoke of the sound of his father dying, and he told him of Abbas's father's body. He didn't tell him anything about how he died.

"One day, I will tell you, I promise, but not now. He... it was linked to my dad. I don't... he wasn't... not now. But I promise I'll tell you..."

And then Altaïr spoke of nightmares and the smell of blood, of the fear he had now of falling and of the sounds of a body hitting the ground, both his own, from a height, and his father's, the dull sound it made from his kneeling position in the dirt, and Abbas held his hand in his. 

Abbas spoke of screams he could hear through the door as he was making sure that Rauf didn't injure himself while falling, he spoke of tears as he was trying to wash away bloodstains on his tunic. 

"It's not as bad as seeing the body of my father, or hearing yours dying, but... we were afraid, you bled so much..."

Altaïr wrapped his right arm around Abbas and Abbas wrapped his around the smaller boy's waist.

If they cried, they never talked about it.

In a smooth, even layer, she painted a subtle pink on her nails. She waited a while for the lacquer to dry and harden before putting on the gold jewelry given to her by her incredibly rich betrothed and then put on the pretty yellow dress over a cream-coloured chemise. The dress was thick and warm, maybe too warm for the Italian sun, but well, she needed to wear period typical clothes, and the thick quality fabric was certainly period typical for a rich woman. Man, did she miss her pants and zipper shirts... 

She walked slowly and gracefully out of the house she lived in and waited there for her betrothed, basking in the breeze and shade that her house provided, sitting gracefully on the bench in front of her house. 

Hers. 

She owned a house.

In 12th century Italy.

What even was her life?

Acquiring this house and the money necessary to pass herself as a noblewoman had been as easy as asking. An old lady lived there, the kind of old lady that had too much money and was the kind of lonely, bitter about her life and family woman who wanted to know that some asshole wouldn't inherit everything she'd ever owned, so she gave it all to Claudia da Roma (she could admit, she hadn't been very original when choosing her name).

In exchange, the old lady had asked that Claudia keep her in this house until she died, which she promised she would. The lady had been very helpful in making sure that Claudia could pass as a noblewoman, a lost niece of hers to a lost brother of hers, who had married a noble Persian woman, which explained the... exotic look and habits of the young woman (never mind the fact that she didn't have a single drop of Persian blood in her veins). She turned a blind eye to her training, turned one to the weapons hidden in the house, and turned one to the entire lie that was Claudia's life. She even ignored the fact that she was manipulating a young man to marry him.

"You do what you want, girl. You are an ambitious thing, getting my money and going after his... well, might as well help you out with all of this. Let's get you some clothing that actually fits you. Let's also fix that sense of style, it is so... odd, and absolutely improper for this boy's good standing in nobility...."

So the old lady helped her learn how to be a woman in the 12th century. She helped her manipulate the boy's family into believing that she was an appropriate choice for their second born and, well, it worked. 

"Betrothed, who would have ever thought?" muttered Rebecca. 

Not that she loved the man or anything, he was simply convenient, knew the Pope, had his ear, and well... she had the boy's ear. And heart. She needed the boy, she had him wrapped around her little finger. She wasn't proud of what she was doing, of course, but it was a necessary evil, she knew as much. 

She smiled gently as she saw him on the hill, his silhouette a, she had to admit, striking sight in his full plate armor, on his horse. He was galloping fast to her location, the putrid water of the streets of Rome splashing around the horse's legs, the brown muck staining the grey mare's robe and the boots of her rider. Rebecca paid no mind to it, simply waving excitedly in the boy's direction, a huge smile plastered on her face, making sure the smile reached her eyes despite the utter boredom that he caused in her. Cesare (and didn't that name bring some second-hand memories back?) was a fine, young, good man, if a bit single-focused. She had no doubt that she would, over time, make him into something more than a glory-seeking, pious man.

Or well, she hoped, because otherwise her married life was sure gonna be dull as fuck.

Amira couldn't fight her blush as Desmond smiled at Laith. Her son was barely able to wobble around, and slowly at that, but Desmond was encouraging him with kind words and open arms and the baby, just like his almost brothers and sister, couldn't resist the pull that the teenager had on him. 

To be entirely honest, Amira couldn't resist it either. Farida, the traitor that she was, kept trying to find ways to leave the two of them alone in a room at times, improper as it was. Masyaf wasn't exactly inhabited by proper people, of course, but... it was still a lot. It was different in the kitchen, to be working alongside him. It was a kitchen in a fortress, nothing could happen there, to many people popping in all the time. But here, in the apartments she shared with Farida and their children in the fortress, with the children all accounted for in classes or out on a walk through the city with Farida...

They were all alone with Laith, who would certainly be falling asleep in a short time...

So Amira blushed whenever Desmond smiled, and whenever his hand touched hers, every time he looked at her in concern... she wanted him to be hers, oh, how she knew it wouldn't happen, she still wanted him to herself. To be in his arms as she fell asleep, to feel his hands that would, no doubt, be gentle on her body instead of bruising, to feel lips she would welcome on her skin. She shook her head, chasing away the improper thoughts that crossed her mind just like she always did. 

'These thoughts, impure, improper, not acceptable...' 

But.

Masyaf wasn't inhabited by proper people. 

So when Laith got tired and fell asleep, when Farida didn't come back from her walk, when Desmond was about to take his leave, she took his hand in hers, and asked him to stay just a little longer.

When he agreed, they sat down on a soft rug and shared some khubz and lamb. When the conversation died out and they were left in comfortable silence, she pushed a wild strand of curly black hair away from her face, bit her lip, and looked up in the soft, gentle brown eyes of the boy. She leaned towards him, and when he didn't pull away, she kissed him gently. He didn't push her away, but he didn't reciprocate the kiss. When she told him of her affection, he told her he couldn't give her love. When she replied that it was fine, that she could accept that, he asked what she wanted. When she replied that she wanted to wipe away the touches of the man who had forced her and told him she hoped her could be the one to do so, he said he couldn't give that to her either, but that he could hold her for as long as she wanted.

She accepted. 

So they lied down on the soft pillows and rugs on which she slept. He opened his arms, and after some awkward shuffling and readjusting, they both found a position that they were comfortable in. Desmond's eyes went shut, his breathing even, and he hugged her tight to him in his slumber.

She slept close to him, too hot, sweaty, one of her arms falling numb because she couldn't move it without disturbing the teenager and not getting much actual sleep, but she was fine with it as she got to feel another human against her, who wasn't a child and could actually hold her.

It wasn't what she asked for, this embrace that was both more and less intimate than what she imagined would happen, but it was, perhaps, so much better.

"My Prince, if you would please..."

"Please, Henry, no one is around, no 'my Prince', we've gone over this, my friend. Tell me."

Henry, or rather, Shaun, repressed the still very-much-present-despite-the-years need to push his glasses back into place to ease his blurry vision. 

"Very well, Richard. I know that this issue is very much real and needs to be taken care of, however..."

Shaun recited his entire speech, every failure in the plan that his friend had created. He held the scraps of ruined parchments on which he'd written everything he needed to say close enough to his face read the words he'd written down to make sure that he wouldn't forget anything. He couldn't see Richard's reaction, which was, frankly, quite stressful, but he knew the man wouldn't take umbrage, not from him.

Richard listened patiently, his slightly wild hair surely glowing in fiery patterns in the candlelight. 

"You are right in every aspect, so what do you propose?" the prince asked.

"Do you have a recent map of the region?"

The taller man nodded and looked around. Once he put his hands on it, he brought the rolled-up map to the semi-blind scholar. As soon as it was in his hands, Shaun unrolled it on the table, pointed a few places and immediately started showing a few strategic places that needed better defenses. Richard listened with rapt attention, asking questions, commenting the plan, finding flaws even in _Shaun's historically proven tactics_ and Shaun felt _good_ about this. The prince was smart, a challenge for Shaun to keep up with intellectually despite the obvious gap in their education, perfectly accepting of his quick wit and sarcasm, not minding it one bit.

It was still a bit unreal to think that Shaun, the blind man that he was without his glasses, had managed to bump into the future king five years ago without noticing. The man had taken it lightly, with humor, despite his brother and the knights at this side's insistence that such an affront was to be punished. Instead, the prince had grabbed Shaun by the shoulder and forgiven him on the spot. 

Shaun, still not able to see who it was that was talking to him, leaned down until he could see the blazon on the man's armor and, once he noticed, immediately spluttered multiple apologies. Richard had laughed boisterously, the knights had been pacified when they realised how poor the man's vision was, and Richard invited the dressed in rags man to enter his service. 

Not one of his proudest moments, a fairly embarrassing and surprising turn of events, he had to admit, but it had worked incredibly well into making him a trusted adviser to Richard.

'Not bad for an _actual_ accident.' 

The thick pile of scrolls in front of him was... heart-wrenching. 

Altaïr knew what these scrolls meant. 

He might have been young but he wasn't stupid. 

Might have been brash but not illogical.

The first scroll only contained one sentence: _Burn everything once you master it._

Everything else was written in a weird, unclear way. Nothing too hard to guess for someone who knew anything specific about the Eagle Vision, but nothing clear, and everything was titled with weird names, like the Elite Ranger and Warrior, Hunter's Instinct, Animal Taming, Second Wind, Battle Cry of Ares, Devastating Shot, Shadow of Nyx, Sixth Sense, even _more_ , and all of them with tons of writings to explain them, all of them under titled with a summary of the abilities.

Make your body stronger indefinitely, track enemies without tracks, temporarily form a bond with a wild animal, heal yourself from the brink of death, get stronger for a short amount of time, one extremely strong and precise shot, become unseeable for a few seconds, feel time slow down when an enemy is about to attack, even when EV not in use...

Fine. 

Altaïr was going to read everything. He was going to burn everything. He would do everything Desmond asked of him, would even go as far as listen to what he didn't say, what he didn't write, but clearly implied by giving him scrolls instead of training him.

He'd leave him alone.

He missed Call of Duty.

He missed weed. 

Man did he miss weed. 

He missed the FUCK out of weed. 

He didn't miss his weedy body.

Honestly? Yeah, the end of the world fucked him and everyone he knew over, killed people and animals to the point that extinction was not impossible, made surviving a lot harder than just walking to the nearest convenience store whenever you ran out of Monster and wanted one or something. Yeah, the end of the world... come on, it was the end of the world, it wasn't a good thing, couldn't be a good thing, yet. 

Yet. 

Kyle only started living after that.

He'd never really been sober before, never really did anything with his life. He spent his entire days in his grandmother's basement, in a small town lost in the middle of a forest, on a mountain. He had no diploma, couldn't drive, no one hired in that village aside from the gas station, so he did odd jobs mowing people's lawns and helping them cut down wood from times to times, worked ten-ish hours a week at the gas station, avoided people as much as he could outside of that, bought weed from the scrawny forty-something town dealer with whatever money was left from helping his mams pay the bills and groceries and spent the rest of his time gaming in his room. He helped around the house, mowed the lawn, peeled the potatoes, he wasn't just a stupid, lazy-ass unemployed young adult, but man had he looked like one. Shaggy long blonde hair, three days old stubble, too big clothes, holes in the drywall next to the computer and Xbox... 

Then, 21th of December, 2012. 

They were on the right side of the mountain, the entire village.

The nearest schools, the actual grocery stores, the community college, every place that people worked at, and the hospital, though, were on the other side. His grandma was working in the maternity ward.

She never came home. 

Mams, she was liked by everyone, and she got her house with her husband when they were well off and when they had multiple children, so it was big, had many unused rooms. People trusted her, she was everyone's mams, not just his. Kyle knew that but he never expected people to arrive to his home after the sky stopped burning orange and when ashes started snowing down. He didn't know mams wouldn't come back home yet, but he invited everyone inside, knowing she'd love it if he let them. There was no electricity so he boiled water in the old cast iron wood cooking stove in the basement, the one mams always used to make toast. 

'Why didn't you and pops get rid of this old thing when you renovated the house?' he'd asked her when he started living with her.

'Oh, wait until I make you toast on this. Ain't gonna ever taste toasts as good as this!' 

She was wrong, he hated these toasts, but he never told her. 

So he made people who came looking for mams some tea. When the sky turned from grey to pitch black, around 6 o'clock, he let everyone stay for the night.

Then, when people still didn't come back from the city on the other side of the mountain, and when ashes started falling like snow, he and a few other people left to look for their people in the city, and they found scorched, burning earth, not even there any more buildings... so he let everyone stay in his mams house, because that's what she would have wanted, because he was the only one who had appliances to cook despite the lack of electricity, because he had more than enough place for everyone who was still... still alive in the village. People slept multiple people in the same room but to them, it was preferable than staying alone when they knew that their children and parents and even spouses were not alive anymore.

For a few months, they scavenged what they could from houses and the gas station, they sent search parties around to try and find more people, or food and medications.

When dog and cat food ran out, a few days later they had stored meat in sealed pots.

When the dog and cat meat ran out, a first body was found with slit wrists, still warm.

No one talked about the fact that there was just hair, viscera and bones to bury. No one talked about the fact that the fresh meat was being rationed in very small quantities, no more than a few bites once a week, to avoid a buildup of toxins of some sort. 

No one talked about the fact that some people refused to eat the meat, and no one blamed the five people that left with equipment and food during that time.

When the sky was finally cleared up enough to start growing crops, food was lower still, and a couple more bodies had been found.

They'd only just collected their first batch of lettuce when Desmond and his wandering community passed by and he decided to leave his grandmother's house to join them.

And that was when his life began.

And now, he was in Constantinople. An eagle on his shoulder, sadly not one that he was bonded with, like the stories Desmond had told him about, but one he had raised for the last months, from its hatching to right now. Hopefully, he'd be able to give it to Des next time he was gonna see him. For now, he had a beautiful eagle, three trainees, a message on its way to Masyaf, and very fond memories to hold onto until he could see the older man again. 

He missed weed, CoD, his mams, chocolate, chips, energy drinks, and mostly...

"I miss you, Des," he said in his seventeen years old voice, "I fucking miss you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> William Miles was ANCIENT for the kind of job he did, people! Born in 1948, he was 64 in 2012, and in Origins, he was 69. The man looks GOOD people, no? Just me?  
> Kay, fine.
> 
> IMPORTANT TIMELINE NOTE BECAUSE IT'S SUPER NOT CLEAR AND I CAN'T MAKE IT CLEAR IN THE STORY ITSELF (mostly for artistic purposes, and a lack of desire to do so, honestly)!  
> Everyone arrived in the past at the same time. William and the kids got dropped in the middle of Paris and didn't have the time to freak out, this is their first day, first minutes, even, in the past.  
> Rebecca has been there for a few weeks, for less time than Desmond.  
> Shaun has been there for a few years, way longer than anyone else.  
> Kyle was there for as long Desmond.  
> Other people were sent in the past, we'll hear about them later, but we'll never see them in the 12th century part of the timeline, for reasons that will be explained later.  
> As for the Altaïr/Desmond/Amira/Abbas POVs, they all chronologically happen in the order in the fic.  
> For anyone who wanted Desmond to take Amira up on her offer, I just... nope. Desmond is a fully grown adult, and Amira is young, I haven't written down her age, but she's fifteen. I know morality is a bit sketchy in this fic but that's just way too sketchy.
> 
> (Anyone else a Hamilton trash?


	9. A future long past, Surviving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooooo! I am a super anxious person, who has reached adulthood and never expected to, and I do not understand humans and emotions. I don't have a revenue, I have an anxiety disorder, I am depressed, or I might be autistic, or have a BPD, or maybe I just premenstrual dysphoria syndrome disorder (which has very litte to nothing to do with gender dysphoria btw). Might be all of the above, actually, or perhaps even, none of the above. Who the fuck knows? I see TWO psychiatrists and they're not sure. I don't really fall into any definite categry, which makes me very difficult to diagnose, treat, and help. My life is not going well and the entire context right now is extremely stressful and distressing in general. I feel like I can't breathe half of the time, everything overwhelms me and I feel like emotions are trying to drown me and I just. Can't. Write. I want to but I can't, not really. I want to so fucking bad, I write every day but it's never right, the words are not right, what's happening isn't right, so I'm gonna use one of my Future long past pre-written chapters because I want to be able to give you guys something.  
> Still, I will present to you the one-shot characters! Without any surprises, we have Malik for the Cannon Character, with a whooping 100% approval rate, and we have Farida with 4 votes and Amira with 3, so the winner is Farida! So as soon as I can actually write something that feels a minimum good enough, I will be writing Malik's and Farida's one shots! Thanks for voting you guys!

_Cortland: Recorded memories #1_

Going out of the Great Temple for the first time, to find food, is...

It's something. Heartbreaking, breakdown inducing. I don't think I've ever seen my father looking so broken inside, on his knees screaming at himself, crying and punching the charred ground until he bleeds, screaming and screaming and screaming. 

Rebecca laughs hysterically, leaning against a rock, pulling out a joint and not even lighting it, as though adding this tiny bit of smoke to the ashy sky would change anyting.

Shaun just... didn't react at all. He planned and tried to find solutions so tat we wouldn't starve, so that we would find food somehow, somewhere. I helped him while disjointed laughter and cries of shame an rage resonated behind us.

Shaun and I, we didn't move to help them in any way. They're the ones who made this reality reality. Rebecca, ordered to do so, had stopped Shaun from helping get free from my dad, who was stopping me from using the Eye, saying something, about how humanity was doomed either way, he couldn't loose his last child...

Fuck them. Let them have their breakdown, let them fucking grovel and feel guilt, it's all their fault anyway.

_Cortland: Recorded memory #13_

"You guys alrright?" the woman asks, removing her sunglasses and smiling brightly. "We have not seen anyone in weeks, seigneur, it is good to see new faces. We never rreally seen many people even before this, kept to ourselves more, were survivalists, you know? People laughed but man was we right."

"It is good to see new people. Name's... Connor. Good to meet you..?"

"Ah, yes, sorry! I'm Julie Arsenault, Brian is my husband. The kids are Alfred, Louis, Amélie and Rosalie."

"My dad, Bill, Bekky and Charles. It's very good to meet you."

My name is too recognizable is anyone from Abstergo survived. Because of Lucy, the others too, so I cannot risk giving away our four names. Two nicknames, an ancestor and a modified but similar name... that'll do. Hopefully.

"Very, very good, yes!"

We all make a sound of agreement, smiles and awkward stances. Brian spoke first after that. 

"You guys don't seem to have much. Y'all look a bit hungry, no backpacks, no nothing. Look, we have two cars with plenty of gas and canned food, we're not about to just leave you to starve. I see the bows, you know how to use them?" we nod "That's all great, but you probably have not seen many wild animals, neither have we. Travel with us, hunt when you can, we will help you guys survive until we reach a town where we can scavenge something, that all right with y'all?"

Shaun muffles a sound of pure relief, I see Rebecca's sunken cheeks relax a bit and even my dad seems to want to accept.

"We gladly accept."

_Cortland: Recorded memory #94_

This somehow untouched town is unsettling after years of travels. Everything is covered in ashes, as is everything, but the houses are in good state, the power lines useless but still there, and my Eagle Vision shows me that the biggest house in inhabited. A group of survivors. There were crosses made out of metal pipes next to the house, covered in what probably used to be colorful stripes of cloth. Beaded necklaces and clumsily carved wooden flowers were tied to some of the crosses, gold rings and on one of the crosses, a little plastic toy car and a pink plastic cup, like the ones for kid's tea sets. Some graves had the exact same bead necklaces as others, or the same flowers. 

"Do you think that this is how they marked down the families?" Bekky asked.

I nod and I see her take a deep breath, to settle herself, the guilt just as strong years later as it was the very first time reality hit her. 

Some of the graves have more decorations than others, and those seem to be taken care of better than the others. Families that are still alive? Or perhaps those who don't have anyone left? Unimportant. 

A small group walks out of the house, badly made weapons and a gun or two in hand.

"Who are you?" someone shouted, a tall, scrawny man. Actually, now that I look at them correctly, they're all scrawny. Too thin, faces almost terrifyingly thin. 

Desmond raised his hands in a soothing motion.

"No one who want to hurt you."

"That's what the other group before that said! And two of our people were killed and they stole all of the food we'd started growing!"

I gesture to Alfred, the youngest in our scouting group, who just turned nineteen. He nods and grabs the bags that are on my motorcycle, full of Mason jars filled with food. In the house (though it could almost be called a mansion), I see more and more people gather to the windows. Ten inside, five outside. Those pots could maybe feed them for a few days if they ration themselves, which, as I see it, they are already used to doing. 

"I promise, we have no interest in killing any of you. None. We have plenty more than you, we have no reasons to rob you."

Alfred gets back next to me and extends his arms with the bags in front of him slightly, muscles straining under the heavy weights. One of the men, who just arrived from the side of the house with a tired looking plastic box filled with lettuce and who can't be older than twenty-three, puts his hand on the taller man's shoulder. His piercing blue eyes shine bright, long hair tied in a bun at the top of his head, beard covering his concave cheeks. He almost reminds me of Leonardo, the same kind of posture and intelligent eyes.

"It's alright James, let's calm down. Go back inside, prepare some tea for everyone, alright?" The tall man huffs but listens, and the remaining armed people, three women and a boy of fifteen, lower their weapons. The blonde man rolls his eyes and turns to us. "Sorry for that, people. Simply, as they've said, we lost two people recently. Let me put this inside, I'll be right out."

The man enters the house and calls a few names over, disappearing in the shade of the house. The smallest woman finally approaches and takes the bag from a highly grateful Alfred. She raises her eyebrows when she notices the weight but doesn't say anything. She simply walks inside with the bags, rightfully assuming that they were giving to them. 

Bekka slowly starts counting.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, four..."

"IT'S FOOD! BAGS OF FOOD! _THERES'S EVEN MEAT!"_

The blonde man runs out, eyes open wide. He stops himself in the door frame, leaning forward in pure confusion.

"How did you even get that food?" he asks. "How do you even have enough to share?"

I smile a bit. 

"We're a wandering community. We go from town to town, we record every community we encounter and we trade with them. Sometimes we find people in bad shape, some join us some stay until they reach a city..."

"But how does anyone have so much food?" the man almost screeches. "It was impossible to grow anything outside for years!"

"Hydroponic farms, UV lights, solar panels, gas generators before there was Sun, fishing communities. The big-ish cities that survived started breeding rats to feed people and dogs, lets some dog breeds die out and started crossing the other ones to get guard dogs when some groups of people started attacking smaller communities. We're currently chasing this one, actually. They've been causing trouble for many people. The food is both an apology for the fact that we didn't catch them in time and a welcome gift to the trading caravans maps. Anything you have to trade, people will accept. Carved wood and necklaces included, not that you'l get much from them but something is something."

"Holy goddamned fuck... holy fuck..."

"The world has burned but some pockets of land survived, like this. Like you guys. You're actually six walking days away from the biggest community. They accept people, if you guys ever wish to move out. We have a few paper maps, we can spare one for you."

"I... oh my... and you six, you travel around trading stuff?"

"You're the leader of this group?" I ask instead.

"I... more or less, I guess. This used to be my grandmam's house, I let everyone stay here. I guess they listen to me more than to anyone else..."

"Alright, why don't we sit down somewhere, I'll explain things better?"

The man nods and I tell Rebecca to do her thing. She'll contact the rest of the group, make sure they're all right. Meanwhile, blonde haired man leads me inside the house, asks a six years old to come give them tea in mam's office once it's all ready and then leads me to a room on the second floor. Sun illuminates the place and bookshelves cover the entire walls, from the floor to the ceiling. 

"Most libraries burned, the majority of people burned books when they stopped finding enough wood in the North... it's been a long ass while since I saw so many books... wait, it's all..?"

"Mam's, she was rich. She wrote a few romance books in her 20's and they were best sellers. She bought this house with her husband, had children, disowned all of them when they started fighting over da's heritage after his death. My mother and father were the worst, tried to use me to get more money by starving me and beating me, lying and saying that I was bullied in school and they were oh so poor, needed money to feed me and home school me to protect me. Mam's hired lawyers, adopted me. She used to have encyclopedias here, she moved them all to Pa's old office and filled this one with whatever books she thought a teenager might like. Comic books, manga, teenage litterature, young adults books. She put most of them here. Some are in the living room, others in my own room. Instead of reading them, I played CoD all day" the man shakes his head with a wide smile. "She didn't mind too much."

"Fuck, CoD, I kind of forgot it existed. I might have spend way too much time on it myself." Damn, I still remember when I played for the first time, god I hated the game, but I'd spent money on it so I WOULD. PLAY. IT. AND. ENJOY. IT. And I did, spent one too many sleepless nights on that game. "I guess life was pretty easy for you after that though, yeah?"

"Nah. She demanded I pay her some rent once I turned eighteen. To teach me about responsibilities and so that I would have some work experience on my resume. I never completed High School, I panicked so much whenever there used to be too many people... anyway, she paid for some therapy but it didn't work. Smoked weed for the first time, it was almost like a miracle, it did the job, I was able to work, my boss didn't give a shit, he was as high as me on the job. I stopped smoking when the sky started looking like it was burning. Anyway, not really found memories. I'm... not even sure why I'm sharing all of this? I trust you, somehow... anyway. So, you're a trading group? Oh, I'm Kyle."

Cortland hums gently in my bag, sign that I can trust the blonde. And also that he's interesting to her, probably because of a high Isu lineage in him.

"I'm Connor, and no. We're explorers. We map shit out, we note what still exists and doesn't. We're mostly knowledge traders. We're pretty well of just from that but we're also very well equipped from other stuff too. We found survivalists and a few ex military, some normal families, some artisans, a nice old lady who sews and knits. We usually travel a day or two, set up camp, stay there a week, do the same thing again."

"Shit, that's cool. So, I guess you probably have other people with you?"

"We're one of the two scouting parties, both of them have six people. It's one of the things I wanted to ask you, you think your community will be fine with a camp of fifty people living in the town temporarily?"

"F-fifty? How do you manage to feed everyone?"

I shrug.

"We're basically the only ones making maps, we scavenge when we can, we started the inter-community trades. Our tech genius is making some of the old technologies usable again, adapting whatever she can, putting wind turbines and solar panels everywhere. Our historian is writing down human history and he's collecting journals from the communities, in exchange he gives history books, he's compiling everything he can, writes everything down. My father, he was a MMA fighter, he trains kids in self-defense, and that's not even everything. Let's just say, most communities owe us. Everyone needs us in good health and, since we refuse to settle down anywhere, people make sure to keep us in their good grace. Apparently, we're too valuable, though, honestly, we don't do anything extraordinary. We just did it first and we keep on doing it better than the others."

Cortland exclaims displease at my words but I ignore her. 

"This is so fucking cool. I..." 

A knock at the door interrupts Kyle. The little girl from before enters with two cups of steaming tea. 

"Here Kiki!"

"Thank you, Daphne." The girl smiles and waits. The blonde rolls his eyes. "Yes, you can borrow a comic book, just make sure to wash your hands before reading, we don't want food or dirt on the pages, okay?"

"Kay!"

The girl jumps excitedly and takes a bright orange manga before running back out. I smile a bit. The baby... the baby would have been around her age, just a few months younger. Shit, no, no thinking about them, I don't want to break down right now...

"Hey, you okay man?"

"Yeah, yeah. So, can my people come here for a few days?"

"Absolutely. Oh, the group you're chasing, they stay pretty close to here, we send someone scouting around them to be sure they're not moving or preparing to attack us. There's to many of them for us, they're about thirty. They have people who used to be in our community but who left, that's how they found us. Apparently they joined them. To be fair, the five who left, they were starving, they'd have done anything for food. Well. Almost anything..."

"Where are they exactly? We'll take care of them, your group won't have to worry about them anymore. But why did they leave?"

Kyle closes is eyes and breathes out. 

"I guess we're not the only ones who had to, so... When food started running out, not entirely yet but there wasn't much left and we brought less and less from scavenging, we found the first body. Suicide. Still warm. Still... fresh. There was no good choice. Bury the body or not let it go to waste, that's easy if it's an animal. Much less when it's a human. In the end, I made the call. Some refused to eat but stay because they understood why, they just couldn't bring themselves to eat, some left. I don't blame them. "

I nod. They're not the first people who've had to do hard stuff to survive. I think of the community who ran out of all food before we found them, they'd killed all of their elderly to survive. They were half crazy, even the kids. We never marked down the spot on any map. When we left the community of twenty, no one was alive anymore. We blamed it on a random raider group who, conveniently, was known to be in the area and we burned the town in which the community lived. A body or two, after a suicide... fuck, even us made that choice once. 

"Yeah, not everyone can deal with that. Were they in the family, good friends?"

"Both."

I sigh. 

"Well, they're still killing and stealing food, which is no better than stealing in your situation. You won't have to be afraid of them anymore, I swear. Think you can mark down their location on a map?"

Kyle nods and takes a pencil, looks at the maps and puts a small x on an old paper map of the region.

"They're in some sort of ravine. It didn't use to be there before, seems like the Earth burning opened it up, or something else, we did feel some earthquakes, nothing too much but still. It's impossible to miss the ravine but they're hard to spot, it's well hidden, it might be hard to surprise them. I found a way to sneak up on them though, I can tell you..." 

After a shared meal between the scouting party and the community, my second scouting party arrives, the sound of the ATVs startling Kyle's people. Our motorcycles must have scared the shit out of them if that's how they react to ATVs... 

My dad and Shaun, Julie and three others walk off and wave at us. I go outside and tell them that the houses still have beds and mattresses but no one has lived in them for years so mold is a possibly. We decide to just set up the tents instead. As everyone starts doing that, I gesture the Assassins to follow me. 

"So the group we were chasing. Found them, they attacked a while ago but they stayed in the area. I know where they are, I know how to get to them, we're doing this tonight. 

**_Kyle's log, day who the fuck even knows anymore? Day 1 of meeting Connor?_ **

_Connor, without any doubts, was an interesting man. One with many secrets, the kind of secrets that a hooded coat and carefully worded sentences couldn't hide. The kind that made me think "I need to follow him"._

_That... had been interesting. I stayed up that night, as I often did, sleeping in the morning and waking up in the afternoon, staying awake through the night to take care of the kids should they wake from nightmares._

_It was also an excellent moment to carve the flowers and bead. My stock of nicely carved flowers and bead would allow me to replace them now. I'm getting better, the flowers are getting more beautiful and the shapes of the beads more even. I even started carving the table legs and... not the moment._

_So I followed Connor and his group of four when I noticed that were leaving their temporary camp. Somehow, I figured out that they wouldn't take lightly to being followed so I stayed crouched low, hiding behind rocks and then running to another hiding spot, staying far enough that they wouldn't hear me. I failed. Connor noticed me immediately but I only learned that after this was all over. He was somewhat impressed though, cause his dad and Charles and Bekky, they didn't see me, and they kinda trained Connor apparently?_

_Anyway._

_Then I noticed that we were next to the ravine and I almost panicked._

_4 vs 30?_

_Fuck no, how dumb were they?_

_But they just dispersed at the spots I mentioned overlooked their camp, took their bows, prepared to shoot, and all did at the same time. From where I was, I saw four bodies fall, two who were guarding each side of the ravine, two in the camp itself, awake by a fire. Then, Connor and Bekky climbed down as Bill and Charles stayed up, standing guard, ready to fire if anyone left a tent. The two reached the bottom and then they went tent to tent. They had traveled to three tents each, out of the twenty, and they were in their forth when someone shouted. I thought that they were dead for sure, sayonara Connor and Bekky but then nope._

_They made it out of their tents in one piece. Whipped out a gun and dagger each, not needing to stay silent anymore. Arrows flew and people screamed and then Bekka and Connor were the only ones down there left standing. Bekka cheered but then Connor, his hood down because of the fight, his eyes glowing gold, screamed at me to move the fuck away. I did, jumped left and barely avoided a baseball bat to the head. I threw a (weak) punch at (and fuck that hurt (note to self, don't punch with your thumb inside your fist anymore you dumbass)) Mary, I recognized her, the bitch, she was the one who killed Lauren's dad. She then had, oh she just fucking had to jump on me, hold me to the ground and pull out a knife to try to kill me._

_The fucker was fed better than me, she could have succeeded, but an arrow got her in the lower back, and another in her arm, the one holding her knife. Considering how fast she was moving, and how weird the position was, they were pretty good shot, I didn't see them as such when it happened though. I just cursed the bastards who missed. The adrenaline, I think it's the thing? Dammit, should have listened in science classes and shit. Anyway, I grabbed the knife from her and I plunged it where I could. I got lucky, got her between the ribs. Where the heart is. Killed her almost immediately. When I pushed her body away from mine, with Bill's help, Connor was already at the top of the ravine and running towards me._

_He asked, not even out of breath but worry on his face written clear even in the dark, if I was fine. I wasn't, of fucking course I wasn't, but I_ _nodded, wiping my face on my shirt, trying to get as much of the blood away._

_"There's a river not too far away, I recognize the region. Bekka managed to stay clean but us, we're covered in blood. Let's go there, yeah?"_

_And he told them to leave and he guided me there and we washed away the blood and I may or may not have jumped his bones when he asked me, again, with the softest fucking voice, the nicest voice I've ever heard, the gentlest touch of his hand on my face, if I was fine. I said no and then I aggressively kissed him and I guess he wasn't against the idea._

_Anyway._

_When they leave, I'm gonna follow them._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to me, I guess?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, from now on there will be some smut/implied smut, most of it gay af, as the tags heavily imply. Some implied hetero/lesbian relationships will be mentioned too but nothing graphic.  
> Before anyone questions it, I am taking some liberties with the Novices and stuff.  
> Also, non-graphic underage, mentioned bigotry, some gore, blah blah blah, all the stuff that was listed in the tags, don't expect me to list off warnings in the notes again, won't happen. I might, once again, give a warning for particularly gore parts, but I do not consider missing body parts to be excessively gore. A little boy crying out in pain from his bone piercing his skin does qualify though. I guess it's worse when there's a tiny lil baby goat screaming in pain.   
> Also.   
> Sorry for the long ass wait. Although, I just couldn't write, for various reasons, my mental health being one of them. I'm not a creative person when I'm at my lowest mentally. So, yeah, I'm sorry for not writing earlier but I simply couldn't, it's not that I didn't want to.   
> THE CHAPTER IS UNEDITED FOR NOW, I WILL POST IT AND CORRECT IT DURING THE DAY, I JUST WANTED TO POST SOMETHING THIS MORNING!

The Masyaf fortress stood proud and tall in the glow of the setting sun, dark silhouette in a background of red. Desmond brought his horse to a stop, both to admire the sight and to make sure that the bag that was tied to the saddle, dark brown leather stained in darker patches near the sewn sections at the bottom, was still there. Satisfied, he rolled his neck and shoulders, stretching them. A loud pop made him groan in relief. He grabbed the reins again and made his horse go forward, in Masyaf's direction. 

He was aching all over, horse riding disagreeing with his body. Despite the days spent in the animus and the compiled weeks of remembered travels on horses, he'd never managed to ride comfortably. Even with the lessons he was given in Masyaf. He missed motorcycles, if he was being entirely honest. Fuck did he miss them, and fuck did he not like the four legged beasts that were the fastest means of transportation on land in this time. He'd gladly go without if it wasn't for the fact that he'd never get anywhere in a semi-reasonable time without the things. Didn't mean he ad to like them. 

And it certainly didn't mean that his body tolerated the hours spent on a saddle on a moving animal.

'Can't wait to be back. I miss friendly faces...'

It was dark when a gold and blue shape that was unmistakably Desmond went through the gates of the fortress. Altaïr looked away and ignored him, focusing on training instead.

"Come... ON!" Malik grunted while pulling his body high enough to rest his chin against the bar he was holding on to if he wanted to, and then lowering himself again until his forearms and arms made a 90 degrees angle, and raising himself up and down again and again. He had bags filled with rocks tied to his legs and one on his back. His naked chest was glistening in sweat under the full moon, the boy having ditched his tunic early in their strength training, the workout enough to keep himself warm in the night. Altaïr had kept his own tunic on. He felt the cold more sharply than most of his brothers, he'd found out, so despite the training he didn't nearly sweat as much as his three friends did.

Altaïr was doing the same training as Malik, the two of them wanting to beat the other. Abbas was on the most advanced balance training course, weighted down too, and Rauf was... doing something involving a sword and the edge of the wall and jumping. Rauf's training was always a bit strange but he was keeping up with Malik and Abbas, somehow, so it was fine. 

As soon as he'd started developing and 'unlocking', as Desmond had written, his abilities with the Eagle Vision, the boy, now a young man, had started becoming better and better than his friends, faster than before. He'd always had a bit of an edge on them but not that much. He had been the best of his age, and even among the older boys, without a doubt, but his abilities were still that of 'normal' humans. Not anymore, not really.

Malik fell to the ground after his fiftieth-something pull up, having managed at least ten more compared to the last time that they'd done this, arms trembling from the added weight and all the exercise they'd done in the day. 

"How... do you..."

Altaïr kept on for an additional twenty before letting go. He could have gone longer, probably, but he didn't really feel like it, if he was being honest. The exhaustion of the day was starting to creep up on him, his lungs burned a bit and his arms were trembling slightly. Not as much as Malik's, who looked like he was gonna faint if he so much as moved too fast, but still fairly more tired than he'd felt in a while.

"That... was a workout" he said, making his voice sound slightly more strained than it really was.

"No... shit..."

"At least we know that... we can lift someone our weight just... with our arms if needed. That's good."

Malik grunted and, after a few minutes, grabbed his tunic, putting it on to protect himself from the chill.

"Well, I'm done for the night. Gonna get myself some food, coming with or..."

"Go ahead, brother."

"Alright. Remember to sleep" he said as he left, climbing down the tower with a few curses, slower than he usually was. Rauf followed him almost immediately, his hair drenched in sweat from whatever weird training he'd been doing. As soon as the two had left, Altaïr activated his EV, making sure that no one was left around except himself and Abbas.

Satisfied, he deactivated and joined Abbas at the top of the wathc tower that was oh so close to the end of the agility training path. The other boy had lit the low brazier. The watchtower was only used in war time, and in war time, having a distracted cold guard at night was no good. The top of the tower was stocked with wood and the brazier could be covered to allow the embers to burn hot and to stop the light from ruining the vision of the Assassin manning it. 

For them though, it meant that no one would find them. They brought some wood every once in a while, both to be sure that in a case of emergency there'd be enough wood and to ensure that no one would notice that anything was amiss. 

When Altaïr got to the top and into the warm area provided by the brazier, he groaned, his fingers tingling gently in the heat. A pair of arms wrapped up around his waist and lips pressed against his neck through his hood.

"They finally left, huh?" Abbas said, his voice low.

Altaïr smiled and reached for the taller male's hands, simply holding him there, basking in the warmth and comfort that came from the hard feel of a body against his. 

"Let's sit" he said. Both boys laid on the blanket that Altaïr packed, to replace the one that was... well, not very clean.

'I get cold after we stop training, I need something to keep me warm while I'm coming back' he'd said two years ago, when he and Abbas had started 'training' longer. Rauf and Malik only shrugged and ignored it. They didn't have any reasons to question it, so from times to times, Abbas would do something that Altaïr wasn't doing and they'd both stay longer and not come back until the first rays of the sun started appearing. If one or both of them took extra care keeping their hood up and seemed a bit more careful when climbing around or fighting or riding their horses the day after they would spent some extra time 'training' together, if a bruise or two was visible in the baths, in a strange spot beind their necks, or bruises slightly reminescent of a human bite on a shoulder or maybe even a thigh, well, no one ever said anything. No teasing, no jabs, no weird stares. 

Don't ask, don't tell.

Marriage still had a place in the fortress, between more traditionnal people, who turned a blind eye to the behaviours of their Brothers and Sisters who did not respect the laws and traditions of the land. They didn't like it, but they ignored them. Children were had outside of wedlock, women and men were sometimes never, ever seen in the company of the other gender and yet still had the tale tell marks of someone who had not spent the night alone. Even among the more traditionnal married people, some things happened, men who had strange rope marks on them or women who glowed in satisfaction, bruises exposed on their wrists whenever they pused their sleeves up, some green, other yellow, others looking so purple that they seemed black, and yet perfectly happy and showing no signs of discomfort when their husbands were nearby. 

Proper people would have told the women's husband of their shameful, despicable behaviors. Would have told the fathers and brothers of the women who were closer than what should have been about what their doughter or sister was doing. Would have frowned at the man leaving bruises on his faithful, respectful wife but wouldn't have said anything since it was within his right. Would have turned a blind eye to the men who did not show interest in the right gender, but would have made them feel the pressure of finding a wife and to finally grow up from these shameful desires, seeing as they wer not boys anymore, and these desires for other grown men, only sick people had, after all.

However, Masyaf wasn't a place for proper people. 

Don't ask, don't tell.

Everyone, even young teenagers, knew not to put their noses where it didn't belong, so that, in exchang, the same courtesy would be returned.

Altaïr and Abbas, by the time that they reached sixteen years of age, were well aware of this generaly unspoken rule, and as such, were not affraid, as long as they stayed in the fortress.

_Altaïr, then a teenager, had started noticing the stares and the tension between himself and Abbas. At first, he'd thought they just needed to fight it off, which they did, numerous times, without success. For months, they barelly talked except to insult each other and to start brawl after brawl. One day, after unlocking one of his Eagle Senses, the blonde boy heard a few of the men betting on when the boys would finally 'fuck it out of their systems'. Now, Altaïr wasn't entirely innocent,he knew what fucking meant, and what it involved, namely, a man and a woman._

_Somewhat confused about how this could be possible, he'd went, his entire face covered in a blush, to the healer who had taken care of him when he'd broken his arm, and who was the only healer who he ever accepted to see whenever he hurt himself. Maybe it was because of how young the man was compared to the old healers, not even twenty-five yet. Perhaps it was because of how honest he was with him, always telling him when something would hurt like a bitch, or when he'd been stupid. Altaïr appreciated honesty. He repsected the healer, and mostly, he trusted him. So, he had asked how it was possible for two men to 'fuck'. A trully awkward conversation followed, a somehow less awkward 'demonstration' between the then sixteen years old and the man showed Altaïr just what exactly his lesson translated to in reality._

_The next day, Altaïr found a tower, where no one ever went, and stored a few items, a blanket, a small towel, some dried food that Farida had given him and a vial of oil tat he hoped, oh he so hoped, he could use and stashed them all in a small chest that he covered with an old leather piece that would keep his things safe. For what he hoped would be the last time, he plotted a way to have Abbas be trully enraged with him, since trying to talk to him just. Did. Not. Work._

_Well, it turned out that pissing him off wasn't as easy as he'd hoped. After a few days of failed rilling up, Malik, with an exasperated sigh, told him that Abbas had grown tired of their fights. A pointed stare accompanied the statement. Altaïr ignore it and went on his way._

_He'd have to go with plan 2, then._

_He started teasing Abbas in subbtle ways, lingered slightly closer slightly longer than he should have in class when they were forced to interact, started brushing against him when he didn't need to, would press his body on Abbas' when they were sparring and ended up on the ground. A slight blush, absolutely adorable blush, covered the black haired boy's cheeks whenever Altaïr got too close, further confirming what he already knew to be true. Then, finally, when Abbas was alone, walking in the late day's shade, his ood down, one of their free days, he crept up behind him and gently bit the taller boy's ear and told him, barely above a whisper, to catch him if he could. Abbas, red and enraged, raced after the blonde boy, who was only wearing a simple pale grey tunic and pants instead of his full Novice gear. Altaïr' lead the chase toward his chosen tower, the climbing as fast as he could, reaching the top a full ten seconds earlier than Abbas, enough for him to put down the gourd of water that he'd brought along. He remembered just how breathless he'd been after, with the healer, and they hadn't even done that much... no, he didn't want to be stuck at the top of a tower, in need of water and not finding any._

_As soon as a barely sweating but shaking Abbas reached the top of the frankly stupidly tall tower, rage simmering in his eyes, Altaïr tripped him and controlled his fall so that he'd land squarely on his back, away from the brazier and close to the small chest. Sitting on the other teen's thighs, olding his wrists down, their faces were inches away, their torsoes brushing lightly. Abbas tried to struggle away but Altaïr didn't let him, instead pressing their lips together. Abbas went limp under him, not struggling anymore, and yet not reciprocating the kiss. When Altaïr separated their lips, he also let go of Abbas, suddenly unsure._

_"Did I understand this wrong?" he asked the older boy, who still hadn't moved. Slowly, he shook his head left and right._

_"No... no, you have not."_

_Slowly, Abbas raised his hand to the paller boy's face, his finger tips gently brushing over a temple, a cheekbone, the bridge of a nose, a bottom lip, before the hand spread on a cheek and reached for the back of a neck. Abbas slowly raised his upper body from the ground, and scooted back until he was leaning against the wall, Altaïr following him, not wanting the other boy's hand to leave his skin. As soon as his back was resting against the low wall, barely a foot higher than his head, Abbas had pulled the smaller teen down on his lap again with his free hand. He initiated their second kiss, and then their third, and forth, and fifth._

_If Altaïr had been hungry, then the black haired boy was ravenous._

_Altaïr kinda liked it._

After that, the tower had seen them often. It was never used by anyone except the two of them. This tower was theirs. Silent but for their muffled moans and groans, dark but warm, the ground hard and somewhat unforgiving but it was away from people, without prying eyes and ears. 

The tower was safe for the two men, even now that they weren't Novices anymore, and so Altaïr didn't hesitate to turn around to press his front to his lover's, knowing that while their silhouettes would be visible to someone who was trully trying to see them, people wouldn't be able to recognise them. His face reached up under his hood.

"Kiss me" Altaïr asked Abbas. 

Abbas smiled.

Lips met lips. 

If Altaïr was ravenous then the black haired man was insatiable.

After leaving the horse in the care of the stable hand, he walked to the keep. A pack on his back and the leather bag tied to his hip, he relished in the feeling of being off of the horse. The walk up had loosened up his muscles some, enough that he no longer looked stiff by the time he reached the first Assassin guard on the ramparts. The man gestured to the gate, where a guard looked at his blue scroll and let him in without a single word. 

Desmond entered the keep at night. He noticed the four silhouettes on the ramparts, the blue and gold one imediately identified as his ancestor, and so he didn't bother trying to identify the three blue ones, sure they were just Altaïr's friends. In a way, he was happy to know that the boy (not that he was still a boy, after all these years...) still had them. In others, in could feel the dread rising in his chest, the thought that him being nice to a broken boy had been enough to change the course of history enough that it could fuck up the plan. 

'Not the time to think about this' he thought. 

He toyed with the strings of the bag briefly as he approached the doors, entering the castle. He questioned one of the posted guards about Al Mualim's whereabouts. 

"He should be somewhere in the library" the too-pale, almost grey skinned boy answered. 

"Thank you, brother. Safety and peace." 

A nod and almost nonexistent wave answered him, instead of the expected 'safety and peace'. The bandage around the boy's hand explained the weird behavior. It was stained with blood, some of it not entirely dry, as though the injury was a few hours old at most, which it probably was. The boy, along with his group, had just gotten past the rank of Novice, it seemed. 

'Probably made to patrol despite the injury to teach him endurance. An enemy won't stop running after you just because you are injured, after all...'

He walked to the library and flared his Eagle vision when he reached the stairs, tagging the old man. Up and behind, to his left. He went up the stairs and headed straight to the old man but looked around, pretending to be looking for him, his head moving only slightly to the left and then to the right. When he finally saw the old man, he repressed the urge to sneer in distaste, instead saluting him. 

"Desmond, I expect that you are back with positive results?"

"Yes, Mentor" Desmond answered while gesturing to the bag. "I am afraid that this proof is in bad shape, however. The collecting was... difficult, delayed by guards."

"Well, such a fight can't be an easy thing, after all, they are often messy, aren't they?"

"Indeed."

"Well, come with me to my office" he said and Desmond obeyed, following the old man through the fortress. "I have your hidden blade there for you. If you'd been born or raised in the Brotherhood as you should have been, had your mother not fled, you would have been inducted when your group of Novices and yourself would have completed your training to become an Assassin Servant. A ceremony, an oath. As it is, you will simply visit the surgeon, he will remove your finger and sew it so that you won't bleed out. I have no need for your public oath, your service in the past years has been proof enough of your loyalty, however I will still, of course, require that you swear it to me in private. The information you gathered, the targets who I have power over now, and those you have ended... work of genius, really. Ruthless when needed, visible or not as per instructed. Yes, this has truly been proof enough..."

They had reached the old man's office. Al Mualim opened the door and gestured Desmond to enter. As soon as he did, the old man closed the door and dropped the nice smile he'd been wearing like a mask. 

"If you will please put the head on the desk?" 

Desmond nodded and untied the leather bag at his hip, opening it and letting the head roll out on the empty surface of the hardwood desk. Neither men flinched at the stench of rotten the body part, although Desmond avoided looking at it for too long. The alternance between hot and cool weather, which was so familiar in Syria, or what would become Syria, had certainly helped the microbes and parasites to destroy the putrid flesh. While he could tolerate the smell, the sight of it... well, it was another story. 

"You said it was in bad shape but I sure didn't expect the head to be so decomposed. I certainly did not expect the missing nose... How long ago did you kill him?"

"He noticed the scroll, asked who my target was and why I tried to hide it from him, since he was still my teacher. Attacked me when I refused to answer." Desmond rolled up his sleeve and showed the barely healed scar on his left forearm, running from the top of his hand to the elbow, and showed it to the old man. "The bastard was a traitor, but he was a smart one. I didn't have a choice. I am good, Mentor, but so was Faheem. He wasn't a Master for nothing. Waiting until the day before entering Masyaf was simply not possible, my apologies."

A deep sigh.

"I suppose you are right. Well, I will announce his death to the boys tomorrow. A group of Christian knights attacked you and you defended against them, you got hurt in the fight and Faheem fell. You had to stay in hidding for a week to let your arm and ankle heal a bit before coming back, make sure that it looks slightly stiff, my boy. Your arm injury isn't enough to justify not getting the cadaver home, if your feet is injured as well, it will be more understandable, even forgivable. The living are more important than the dead, after all. "

"Very well."

"Perfect. Now, here is your blade and your sash, I would suggest going to the baths before visiting the surgeons. As for eating, I would imagine you know whether or not you will be able to keep your food if you're to get your finger cut off."

"Mentor..."

"Ah, yes, I have forgotten. Congratulations, Master Assassin. Now, your oath."

Amira was exhausted. Exhausted, so, so exhausted, but the new girl, who had run away, just like she had, had gotten a fever.

She was immediately sent to one of the isolation rooms, the healers afraid to visit her until it was confirmed, and for good reasons. Three days after the start of the fever, she had developed rashes. The poor girl was infected with smallpox. Apparently, there were a few cases in her village, but she'd thought that she was safe. So Amira, who had finally been moved to the day shifts, barely six months ago, was now, once again, working the nights because one of the other women who had gotten to the keep after she had had gotten herself pregnant and was just about to give birth. She didn't mind it that much, except for the fact that she hadn't had the time to get used to it _again_. So she was exhausted and cranky, honestly, she just wanted to fall asleep. Almost silent footsteps alerted her that an Assassin, maybe a Novice, had just entered the kitchen. 

'I'm not talking to this idiot, the new girl is taking care of him' she thought. 

"Amira! I would have thought you'd be working the day by now!"

She immediately turned around and let out a happy squeal as she jumped on Desmond and wrapped her arms around his neck, her bone deep exhaustion forgotten.

"It's been so long! Ah, how happy I am to see you!"

"Please... let go..."

She did after a few more seconds and noticed the exhausted-looking smirk on his lips, and the feeble wave of his bandaged, bleeding right hand. 

"Oh, I'm sorry! Come here, sit, let me bring you some food. Roya, keep on doing what you were doing yes? Thank you." 

The girl nodded and kept on trying to clean the same metal cauldron, which had obviously been used for something that had burned, and the young woman, in a flutter of skirts, gathered a huge amount of food. When she came back to the little table in the corner of the kitchen, it was with some lamb, a bowl of steaming chickpea, chicken and vegetables stew that she set right in front of her friend, some khubz, herbal tea and dried fruits. 

"Here, there's not much to do so I'll sit with you. That cauldron is the only thing left to clean for now and we don't have to start on the day's meals yet and we should have enough for anyone who hasn't eaten tonight yet. I can take a break, for once. The girl can do the tasks she's always way too tired to do for once, can't she?" 

Amira sent a petty look over her shoulder at said girl, who had only been there for three days but was already getting on the older woman's nerves. The girl rolled her eyes at the elder woman and pretented that she hadn't heard her. Tch. Well, Amira was fine with some disrespect. She got to see her friend, after years of him being away. She looked back at him with a bright smile on her face. 

"You have certainly grown, Desmond. It is a good look on you! Altough, you look a bit thin..."

"Well, I was injured for a few days, had to hide for a while. I couldn't just go out of hidding for food. It is good to be able to eat though, I will admit. This smells great, is that Farida's stew?"

"Yes, it is! She's pretty much in charge of the whole kitchen, actually. Remember that sad soup that we were made to make at least once a week because it was good for building character? Farida got rid of it the first day that she took over."

The not-a-boy anymore smiled under his hood (by the sky, would he always have the thing up now, like she'd seen some of the older Assassins wear them?).

"I'm not surprised. She's more than capable enough. I trust that she is well. How's little Laith?"

Amira smiled wide, words spilling from her in between bites of lamb and fruits. Desmond looked at her (well, not that she could be completely sure, what with the shadow that the thing cast over his face in the somewhat already dark kitchen, but she was fairly sure that she could occasionaly see hints of golden eyes) with a soft smile, one that still made her insides melt from how honest and warm it was. 

"You know, it's weird."

"What is?" he asked after swallowing a bite of khubz. 

"How much I still trust you, after seven years. Maybe it's because the Old Man does" she pointed to his bandaged hand "but it's not just that, I think that there's more to it."

She could definitely see golden eyes now, and a mouth that spoke of rare honesty.

"Who knows, maybe. I've been told I'm trustable, very often."

Amira somehow had a feeling that there was a lot hidden beneath what he'd said. She'd ask him again later, but not now.

"Well, in any case, I have to get back to work now. Don't be a stranger. Farida misses you too, and her children still remember you. Please come visit whenever you want to. We still live in the same appartments, and neither of us work or sleep between the mid-day meal and the evening meal. Come see us whenever you can, alright?"

"I promise that I will come as often as I can."

"I will hold you to that promise. Oh, and Desmond?" she asked as he was almost out the door. He turned around, his intact hand holding the doorframe. 

"I thank you, all these years ago. For refusing. Although, what I said still stands to this day. Good night."

"... good night to you too, Amira. Peace and prosperity."

"Peace and prosperity."

Desmond had not expected to walk in on a conversation between Rauf and Malik. Certainly not THIS conversation.

"...eally think that we don't know?"

"Look. You now that they need to keep everything hush. Just in case. They know that we're not stupid, but also, they want to give us the chance to ignore it if we don't want to aknowledge it."

"Malik, we've been friends with them for YEARS! How can they think that we're gonna reject them or something?"

"Shut up, you dumbass, just shut. Up."

"Awwww, come on, as if anyon- I'm not talking about anything at all, haha, I was just joking!"

Desmond barely refrained from slapping his forehead at the young man's terrible attempt at lying. Instead, he simply ignored him and walked away with a very slight, almost imperceptible limp. Or at least, he pretended to ignore him. 

"What's his problem anyway, looking at me all weird like that?"

"He was wearing his hood, you don't even know if he was looking at you, stupid."

"He was _CLEARLY_ looking at me all funny!"

"Yeah, 'cause Master Assassins don't have anything better to do than to laugh at incompetent Servants who're seconds away from spilling secrets in the middle of a FORTRESS WHERE HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE LIVE??"

"Wait, he was a Master?"

"ARE YOU _BLIND_?"

"STOP SCREAMING, IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!"

Amusing as the indeed ridiculously incompetent Servant and his ex-Master's son were being, he was still not really focussing on them. Nor was he focussing on the truly bizzare family that Rauf had, although it somehow made sense that Masyaf would be odd even to people who were used to odd. No, he was focussing on the secret that Abbas and Altaïr, it seemed, were keeping, or at least trying to keep, from even their closest friends. 

Well, it wasn't like he would interact with any of the boys anytime soon.

Fuck, he just wanted a bed and a scented candle to get the smell of putrid flesh out of his damn mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like spoiling too much in the tags, I'll edit them next chapter! For now enjoy some -maybe-not-a-surprise Abbas/Altaïr and some Puzzled!Desmond.  
> P.S.- I know that Masyaf and the castle have a map and all, but f this, this is a fanfiction, I do what I want.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am alive y'all, look at that!! HAH!  
> Oh, yeah, CONTENT WARNING warning for the italics, it's, huh, pretty graphic torture.

CONTENT WARNING FOR THE ITALICS, pretty graphic torture and some really creepy shit. You can skip it, it's not necessary to the understanding of the story, I made sure of it. It's separated in two, the second part is safe to read, it is the character's immediate psychological aftermath. You can still skip it, however, it will be safe to read. Don't bother with the italics before the linebreak and the next par won't be graphic at all. 

That being said, enjoy!

* * *

Sweaty, Abbas let himself drop next to Altaïr. Smiling to each other, they cuddled closer, knowing that despite the brazier's heat, they would soon be cold. 

"Say, Eagle..."

"Hm?"

"About that violet scroll that the Mentor gave you... what is it?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you, Abbas."

"Of course not, there was a black ribbon around it, but I just. I've heard rumours about... about them."

Altaïr shifted a bit, his smile waning. 

"I've heard them too but even that... I can't tell you."

Abbas didn't say anything for a while, only nodded his head and kissed his lover's cheek. He spoke again after some time.

"Where are you to go?"

"Jerusalem, I need to leave tomorrow. He has some important information about something that our Mentor wants."

"Jerusalem. How convenient it is that I am also to leave for Jerusalem tomorrow." 

With a tiny smirk on his face, Abbas twisted his body around to grab his clothes. Digging through it, he pulled out a red scroll, with a grey cloth keeping it closed. 

"We both got our first real missions at the same time, huh?"

"We did. Rauf got one too, he's heading out for Damascus during the night. He's checking up on his mother first."

"And Malik?"

"Not sure, but it should come soon for him too."

Altaïr's smile comes back, softer this time. 

"It's crazy to think that we're sent on our first solo missions. We've grown since we were Novices, and... and I think... Once we're both back in Masyaf, after our missions, I'll..."

The blonde man pauses. 

"You will...?"

"I'll tell you... about your father."

'I will not cry.'

"... barely made it back himself... had to run aw... didn't manage to bring back..."

The shaky, heavy breathing of his brother next to him.

'I will not cry.'

"... enemies to our organisation..."

'Ennemies..?'

His brother grabbing his arm, too tight, tight enough to bruise. 

'I will not cry.'

A face hiding in the crook of his neck and shoulder.

'I will care for him.'

A broken sob.

'I will protect him.'

"... such, you will be heading for Acre in three days."

Malik slowly came out of the fog that seemed to have covered his mind. 

"Mentor, I..."

"I know, Malik. Of course, you don't want to leave your brother here but I promise you, I will personally make sure that he is safe, just like I promised your father that I would take care of you two while he was away. Have I failed him?"

The eldest brother shook his head. 

"Then you must trust that I will care for your brother. Here is your scroll, now go, boys." 

Malik, a grey scroll with a grey ribbon around it, bowed slightly to the Mentor, as did his brother, and headed out. 

Still wiping tears away from his face, Kadar was looking truly miserable. Malik felt no better if he was entirely honest with himself. 

On his way to the Mentor's office, Desmond saw the retreating backs of a trembling, crying boy, and a stiff-looking young man who seemed to be doing his best at having a straight face underneath his grey hood but who was simply failing. The old man had told them already, it seemed. He let the boys exit the corridor before knocking on the Mentor's door in a specific pattern before entering the office without waiting. The old man was reading a letter which was written in what looked like old French. He dropped the letter and gestured in the younger man's direction. 

"What is it that you want, boy?"

"Mentor, may I ask..."

"Are you there about your scroll, Desmond?"

"Yes. I am afraid that I have maybe misunderstood something."

Al-Mualim looked at him with his usual emotionless face, the fake sympathy he'd had on it while he told the brothers of their father's "tragic" death at the hands of the knights.

"You want to ask if I have truly given you Altaïr as an apprentice, so that he may reach the rank of Assassin."

"Yes. I do not know that I can teach someone, even someone as gifted as my cousin, anything..."

The old man waved his hand in front of the younger one's face. 

"Nonsense. You are the most talented Assassin this fortress has seen in years, and he has the potential to reach your level. No one else can teach him that, you will take him on as your apprentice, is that understood?"

"Yes, Mentor. Thank you for the trust you show me."

"Yes, yes, now go."

Desmond left.

"Mother, are you alright?" 

He rushed to the woman's side and knelt next to the place where she had fallen and hadn't gotten back up. 

"Rauf, is that you, my dear?"

"Yes, mother, it's me. Are you alright?"

"Ah, yes, I have simply been enjoying the floor. Help me get up, will you? And stop laughing at me, I can see you do it!"

"You can't see anything, mother," he said, no even bothering to repress his smile.

"Hush, I still remember your father's face, I can't imagine that you look much different from him. And I can hear it in your voice! Now come on, help me up!"

Rauf led his mother's hands to his shoulders, which the woman grabbed. As gently as he could, he helped her to her foot and handed her cane to her.

"Thank you, my dear. Will you please go fetch me some water?" 

The man agreed and grabbed the pitcher, noting that he'd have to refill it soon. He filled a cup for the ex-Assassin and guided her to a cushion, on which she carefully sat, her sole, weak leg trembling from the effort, and put the cup in his mother's hand. He grabbed a cushion of his own and sat in front of her. 

"I... I have something to ask you. Have you... well, before your capture, have you ever been tasked with..."

"With the green scrolls?" the woman asked softly, not really waiting for an answer. She grabbed her son's hand. "Yes, I have been. Not often, but often enough to know that being scared of doing it is normal."

"I'm not..!"

"Oh? You're not? Then are you just like the men who did this to me?"

"What? Never! I would never just torture someone without a reason! I just... well, maybe that scared is the right word..."

With a kind but sad smile, she extended her hand towards her son's face. 

"Let me tell you about the mission that led to this."

_She was thirty-three at the time, her child young enough to need someone to watch over him when she was away on missions but not young enough that he still needed the breast. The boy, born nine months after a purple scroll, was in the care of Ahmad Soffian's wife._

_Marisa had left Masyaf for a small village, small enough that the residents hadn't bothered giving it a name. In the cover of the night, she slipped in one of the houses, the house of a murder, a man who had killed multiple women in Jerusalem a few years back, and who now was living with his brother's family. She put a slow-acting agent, fairly nasty, on his lips and he, as expected, licked them in his sleep, leaving no traces of it. He would wake up nauseous, vomit and shit and sweat like a pig and he would die. An end that she felt to be fitting for a man who had kidnapped women to observe them starving to death._

_The mission itself was nothing that she did not expect and not the cause for her capture by enemies of the Assassins. In fact, her capture specifically was simply bad luck. A group of bandits had shot her horse with multiple arrows, which had gotten it and herself. The horse fell on the woman's left leg, the one riddled with arrows. That leg would be the one she'd lose, not because of torture but because of the bad humour that had infected it. The bandits had managed to capture her, days away from being promoted to a Master Assassin. None of them had recognised her to be a trained fighter nor killer, despite her multiple weapons, and as such had been very loose in their surveillance of her but their knots were impossible to untie, to unpredictable, the rope too rough and thin to be easy to loosen, too big to easily weaken, and too tight to make it possible to escape them even by breaking her thumb. They had not been rough with her, had not hurt her or abused her in any way in the two days that they had had her in their 'care', had even done their best to heal her leg, but they were not keeping her without a reason._

_As it turned out, two men had made it known in unsavoury circles that they would pay a pretty sum for anyone who would capture and deliver a person dressed in whites or pale greys, who had a red sash and who sported a weird arrow tip shape on their clothes, and extra for those missing a finger on their left hand. The bandits had brought her to a small camp where the men were waiting, had accepted the money and had left. The man had started by making sure that she would not be able to escape or hurt them, breaking her other leg and her arms. They had tortured her, not telling who they were, never asking any questions._

_After a week, she had started shivering, her left leg letting out a putrid smell. The men had packed their camp, put a cart behind their horses, and had travelled towards Masyaf. Through her fever, she heard what she recognised as French, although she couldn't speak or understand it, having focused more on Latin and Italian, regretting it fiercely now. When they had reached the foot of the mountain, one of the men left. In that time, the other one told her, in broken Arabic, that the Templars were greeting her and her kind, and that if they ever were to touch one of their own again, they wouldn't stop at torturing one of the Assassins next time. He then produced two crosses that had a weird shape. The famous Knights of the Temple cross, with what looked like multiple needles sticking out of them, one in the centre, one at each end, as long as one of her pinkies' bones._

_Despite her fever, she was wide awake, the moment clear in her brain, in her eyes, the way that the stars shone, the orange of the small fire, the snarl on the man's face. Her broken body trying to move away from the man and him trapping her arms and torso between his thighs, his body weight on her tender, bruised ribs. The pins, glinting in the fire's light, held in the man's left hand, his right coming down to caress her face._

_"Such beauty face. Beauty eyes. Shame to take away. Wish not to have to do this, no allowed to use body for pleasure, but pain is beauty too. Pain from no eyes... yes, beauty..."_

_And she screamed, by Him she screamed, and the man hit her face so hard that she lost a tooth, but she kept screaming, tears flowing down her cheeks._

_The pins dropped next to her head, the metalic sound ringing loudly in her ear as her face was grabbed in the man's hand, her cheekbones were being crushed in his grip and she could not move her head, move move MOVE **MOVE** and she was so weak as she still tried to **move** as he used his pointer finger to close her right eyelid and the rest of his hand to keep her still and she couldn't **move** as the first pin made its way to her eye, slowly, the man breathing heavily, a deranged smile on his lips as he lowered the pin, pressing it almost gently against her eyelid, the needles feeling duler than she expected, maybe he was simply scaring her, this had to be it, but then it was slowly pushed in and she felt blood start to seep from her eyelid and his hardened member agaisnt her breasts and the pain was terrible oh so terrible and she could feel her eyes trying to **move** away from the needles but then the pain got so much worse and her eye couldn't **move** anymore and the man moaned and she screamed as he changed hands to hold down her left eyelid and she couldn't see anymore and much faster than the first one, the second pin pierced her left eyelid and eye and she screamed silently and he panted like a dog on top of her, rubbing his member down on her body and she wanted him to **move** away but he wouldn't, she felt him lick the blood and whatever else from her face and he groaned and breathed hard and she heard the other man calling out in French, words she couldn't understand but she could understand the laughter and felt the man **move** faster and faster and press down on her wounds and licking away blood and snot and spit, even licking directly across the pins, until he stilled and twitched and held his breath and groaned out one last time. _

_He got off of her and the other man approached, gathered her in his arms and hushed down her crying, showing kindness to her that she knew to be fake, before being thrown across a saddle, her naked, hurt body aching as he did. He tied her up to it, still ushing her as he voluntarily tied everything too tightly, across wounds and bruises. The last thing that the man did, once her eyes had stopped bleeding, was to wipe her face and to tie a cloth around her head._

_The horse was then hit and it started running, running, and running, and she lost consciousness for a while, from the fever or the blood loss or both, and when she awoke again, she did so to familiar voices, the voices of her Brothers, knowing that she was safe now, that the horse had been a Masyaf horse, that the torture was over. She was untied and she heard the healers swear at her state, at her leg and when the cloth was untied from her head._

* * *

_"Marisa..."_

_It was Ahmad's voice, the one to greet her as she woke up after three days. He held a cup up to her lips and let it drip down her mouth slowly. He calmly told her that she had been found after disappearing for two weeks, on the back of a horse that had been stolen from the stables on the night of her return. He told her that she had been in the caring hands of Templars, who had used her to pass a message along. The words were carved on her body, and the identity of her attackers had been pinned to her eyes, resulting in blindness. She learned that her left leg had been impossible to salvage and, as such, had been cut in the middle of her thigh while she was passed out. She laughed and laughed and wanted to cry but couldn't and screamed her aching throat hoarse once again. She couldn't move from the bed, her arms and remaining leg tied in place to hopefully let them heal. Her whole body was swaddled in bandages and her stomach screamed in hunger and she was useless now, useless useless **useless** , never was going to make it to Master, never was going to **see** her son grow up and oh, Rauf, her sweet, sweet child... _

_She apologised to him for hoping that death would take her._

"Or rather, about how bad luck caused this. I wasn't taken on a mission, I was on my way back from one. A group of bandits got lucky, and Templars wanted an Assassin. If not me, it would have been someone else. They wanted one of us for a reason, used me to send a message. They tortured me, Rauf. They didn't interrogate, didn't stay within the confines of a green scroll. They tortured. Their whole reason for sending me back alive was to show that they would not hesitate at anything to get rid of us if we went in their way again. I was only collateral damage in all of this. They just never stopped, they would take turns, it was pain and more pain and more, always, and never, not once, did they say anything until the very end, when they... when they took my eyes."

Rauf could barely breathe. His mother had never wanted to talk about them, those men. Not once. He'd heard her curse at them in the middle of the night when nightmares would affect her. She'd react poorly every time she heard European languages, particularly French. Always insisted to be nearby when a French prisoner was taken, always close enough to hear screams when they were interrogated. 'It soothes her soul' a man had told him once after he'd gone to take her back to their apartments and had seen her sleeping peacefully with screams echoing around her. 'Your mother is a strong woman, young Rauf, strong and fierce and some bastards took away what let her show it. She doesn't have the right to be here, but if we can give her a piece of herself back from times to times, give her back some of her strength while we ask a few things, well, we will. So don't worry about bringing her home, for now, I'll make sure she's brought back safe.' 

"I was a mission or two away from making it to Master, and they made sure I would never reach that rank. If there's anything I can ask of you, is to never break someone and then let them live. Do everything you can to never permanently damage, but if you have to? Make sure they will die. It's much more kind than being a mother who cannot see her son anymore, who has to rely on him form his childhood to take care of her when she should have been the one to do it...

'The boy is not ready to take on those missions but he must. He is by far one of the prettiest and by far one of our most talented. I fear to think how his talents might have been affected had he lost his friends too soon in life but he hasn't. If anything, I believe that he and young Abbas have been... busy becoming more than. He is the perfect man for this job, young, just experienced enough, and able to look younger than he truly is. I have no doubt that Abbas and Altaïr will be heading to Jerusalem together but Abbas' mission shouldn't take longer than a day or two too complete, a simple task. Altaïr, however, will have to stay longer. I cannot let such an important member alone, his eyes alone are more valuable than any other individual in this fortress. You will be completing multiple tasks in Jerusalem but you WILL keep an eye on Altaïr. Once he is done with his mission, you will...'

Desmond was alone in his room, sulking, unable to sleep. Al Mualim's words were echoing in his head on repeat. In moments like these, he missed Cortland. She would show him new things until he wasn't able to think and he'd fall asleep to thought of the very first hidden blade and its alloy or to the complete process of how petrol came to exist down to the molecular level. Instead, he was stuck thinking of this boy, barely a man. This boy who would be sent on a fucking _honeypot_ , sent to fuck a man twice his age and not even for information, as a _reward of good behaviour._

Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Mentor to the Assassins, the man who regave a purpose to the Assassins, trained to kill, spy, sabotage, sent as a _reward_ because. 

Of course, he wouldn't be aware of that. He'd have to get as much dirt on the man, get some information out of some of his correspondence, but the truth was that he wasn't the first one to be sent to the man. His loyalty to Al Mualim was not in doubt. Any dirt fond on the man would be sent to him so that he could find ways to hide it better. The man was invaluable to the Assassins and Al Mualim knew it and he made sure to keep him in his good grace. 

And if it so happened that the old fucker was able to help the merchant satisfy his craving for holding power over teenagers who could kill him in his sleep, then the old fucker was more than happy to provide. 

And that was Desmond's fault. 

The boy had been supposed to grow lonely after his father's death, hated for his talent and without real friendship, under Rashid's care. Too close to the Mentor to be sent on purple scrolls, too lonely and not socialised enough to ever send on missions that involved people skills. This Altaïr, however, was not only friends with three other boys, but he'd also been introduced to Amalia and Farida and their children, he'd had an entire support network when in another life he'd lost it the second he'd told Abbas about his father. 

Speaking of Abbas. To think that the two of them were together...

And really, that just showed what kind of man Al Mualim was. 

Send the well-adjusted teen, talented to the point of being terrifying to everyone, on a seduction mission. Hopefully, break his bond with his lover. 

Send Abbas on a mission to assassinate a father in front of his eldest son, assuming that Abbas knew the truth. If not? Tell him about it when he came back, hammer it in. 

Send Rauf on an Interrogation outside of Massyaf. Interrogate a mother who knew too much about them from her Templar husband. 

Finally, separate Malik and Kadar three days after the announcement that their father was dead. Promise Malik that he'll personally take care of Kadar while he's away on a long-term information-gathering mission. 

Break the boys' support network, make them easier to manipulate, replace the Altaïr of his timeline with Kadar. 

Desmond was disgusted with the old man and begrudgingly impressed by his cunning.

He wanted to help the boys, wanted to help _Altaïr_ , but it was too soon. He needed the old man to trust him, no matter what. He'd kill Amira and Farida with his bare hands if it meant that he would get to keep the old geezer's trust. It would kill him inside, he would never forgive himself, would lose sleep for days, weeks, even, but he would do it. 

He wouldn't stop Al Mualim. Would let him try to do what it was that he wanted to do. Would let him separate the boys. They had been alone before, they could handle it. He hated to think that he was sacrificing them to Rashid's machinations but he had to. 

The plan was too important to care about individuals. 

Decades ago, Desmond would have refused to let the old man do what he was doing, would have done his best to help everyone, consequences be damned. After seeing the world burn, well... 

He hated himself for everything he'd ever done anyway. What were a few more broken men in the list of his sins? 

**Author's Note:**

> My first language isn't English so there might be some awkward sentence structures and expressions that just don't make any sense, some spelling mistakes and other things like that. Please do point them out to me, I'll go back to correct them!  
> Thanks for reading you guys, y'all are the best!


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